


Shines Over My Horizon

by shihadchick



Series: Down by the River [4]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Columbus Kelpies, F/F, Multi, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Rimming, Rule 63, a lot of sex and feelings, making things even more complicated, the one where Luc adopts a (metaphorical) cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:00:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24231748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick
Summary: There's nothing that really stands out, nothing different to any other day, until Luc leans over to say something to Zach and notices that she's got a dating app open on her phone and is just staring at the picture on top.(In which Luc gets nosy, gets attached, and gets in over her head, in fairly short order. Zach's more than worth it.)
Relationships: Pierre-Luc Dubois/Boone Jenner/Seth Jones/Ryan Murray, Pierre-Luc Dubois/Zach Werenski
Series: Down by the River [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334431
Kudos: 7





	Shines Over My Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> This installment in the Kelpies verse is set a couple months after the last one, with a mix of the 2019 and 2020 Jackets rosters now on board.
> 
> This one is for the tlist, who know what they did (it was to shamelessly egg me on down this garden path.) 
> 
> Many thanks to [yeswayappianway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeswayappianway) for betaing! The title is, of course, from Slice of Heaven; happy New Zealand Music Month, y'all. :D

* * *

Nothing strikes Luc as unusual about Zach at first that day; she's just wearing her usual uniform of skinny jeans and a sleeveless shirt, leather jacket cropped just above the waist. Her shoes are as sensibly flat as usual, they're just… a little nicer than what she usually wears before games. 

There's nothing that really stands out, nothing different to any other day, until Luc leans over to say something to her and notices that she's got a dating app open on her phone and is just staring at the picture on top. 

"Dude, she's hot, swipe already," Luc offers, giving Zach an encouraging smile.

The woman is hot enough—curvy, white in that pink-cheeked sort of way Luc’s used to seeing in British murder mysteries, with short blonde hair, carefully tousled, dark brown eyes, and a grin that stops just short of a smirk. She’s dressed casually femme, with dangling rainbow earrings clearly visible, just in case anyone wondered if she'd wandered into the wrong flavor of dating app, and looks about the same age as them. 

She'd look cute with Zach, Luc thinks, her mind flashing up a quick and probably borderline inappropriate vision of Zach curled around her; all solemn mouth and dancing eyes, her hair standing on end like it does when she's just woken up and before she can style it so the whole faux-hawk and side shave look is as sharp as if she'd just had it cut.

Zach sighs, and closes out of the app.

Luc raises an eyebrow at her. "What?"

Zach shrugs but then for some reason known only to herself, decides to actually share a little for a change. 

"We already went on a date? And, like, it was fine." The 'but' is right there, dangling, and Luc doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to fill it in.

"So no second date?" Luc asks, pushing a little. 

It's for Zach's own good, really. She needs to learn how to actually communicate with people who aren't Jonesy or Murr, because not everyone actually works on secret d-pair telepathy or whatever it is they all do.

"Nah," Zach says and shrugs again. "It just—wasn't what I wanted?"

Luc nods, she gets that. "Sucks, bud." 

She knocks her fist against Zach’s shoulder sympathetically, and considers talking Ryan into going to get another drink for her and for Zach. Ryan’s a soft touch, Luc could definitely pull it off.

Zach sighs. "Yeah, it does."

"Plenty of fish in the sea?" Luc suggests and Zach laughs shortly and says, "Yeah, maybe."

Luc doesn't really think about it after that, distracted by whatever Boone’s trying to mime to her from the other side of the room. At least, she doesn't think about it much. The memory just comes back to the forefront of her mind at odd moments; noticing when Zach seems a little more quiet than usual; when she's an island of silence in the middle of the raucous mess that is their team in the locker room after a win; when she hangs back while they're all milling around at a bar on team outings. 

And Luc doesn't mean to, but she keeps noticing every time Zach leaves with someone, and every time she doesn't. Notices every time Zach comes back, looking quietly disappointed, looking tired. 

She's just—she's not sure exactly what it is about it which gets under her skin. 

Maybe it's that she's concerned for her friend, or maybe Savvy's right when she bitches about how Luc's a hopeless romantic who thinks everyone should have what she does now. Luc doesn't know about _that_ , but she does want her friends to be happy, so hey, that probably qualifies, right?

And it's not like she's creepily watching Zach all the time anyway. 

Luc has a very full schedule, what with playing hockey and doing all the team promo things that the PR team talk her into, and frankly dating multiple people somehow seems to mean more than three times as many commitments to juggle, which makes no sense, but Luc refuses to try and add "extra math" to everything else she's doing.

Seth presses close to her after a blowout win over the Sirens, slides a hand under Luc's shirt and trails her fingertips over Luc's ribs, making her shiver.

"You ready to get out of here?" Seth asks, and Luc looks back at Zach again—flirting with one of the women at the bar, a tall leggy brunette who's flirting back but also peeking over her shoulder occasionally at another woman at the bar. Luc doesn't need to be a genius to see that there's an ex-girlfriend situation just waiting to happen there. She wants to swoop in and get Zach out of there, give her something to make her smile, and that's—

Luc bites her lip. That's not her job. She's Zach's _friend_ , and her girlfriends are waiting on her, and getting distracted isn't fair to them either.

She turns towards Seth, reaches up and kisses her, letting herself sink into it. It's good, it's still so good, and she can feel the heat between them rising, can feel Boone and Ryan's eyes on them too, where they're waiting near the door, ready to go home and celebrate their win properly. Ryan scored, her third of the year, and Luc's been itching to show her how hot that was ever since she jumped to her feet on the bench and yelled in celebration.

Seth nips at her lip and pulls away, grinning at her. "Come on, PL, you're wearing too many clothes."

"So are you," Luc answers instantly, pressing up against Seth just to feel her, kissing her one more time. The weight of Ryan and Boone's eyes feels even heavier, and Luc tears herself away at last, heading for the door, her hand in Seth's.

She doesn't see that Zach's turned away from the girl she was talking to and is watching them, too.

* * *

Luc slinks into practice the next morning feeling well-used in all the best possible ways, fingermark bruises ringing her thighs and striped across her ass. 

Ryan's moving even more stiffly but wearing a smirk that even the Cheshire cat would think was over the top, and Boone and Seth both just look very pleased with themselves. It can't be a surprise to anyone on the team by this stage that they're all together, or how they're celebrating wins, but by this point they've mostly stopped getting chirped for it.

Except Luc had been depending on that state of affairs continuing before turning up looking quite so dramatically well-fucked, and when she steps into her underarmour the next day it's to a full chorus of wolf-whistles and enough teasing that even she goes a little red under it.

Boone sits down beside her, looks at Savvy and Cam—the worst offenders, by volume—and gives them her best shit-eating grin before saying, "What? You guys should feel bad if you're not getting your girls there that good, I'm just saying," and it works, because both of them burst into loud defenses of their own abilities in bed and it all blends into one big chaotic mess until Coach comes in and rolls her eyes at them until they shut up.

"Save some of that energy for the ice, please," is all she says, and then they're heading out and back to business, and Luc is just so, so glad she's got her team.

* * *

She gets a little more chirping peeling out of her gear after practice, but the volume is a lot lower, all of them tired out. 

They've got a day off before the next game, so that's something to look forward to, and frankly all Luc's thinking about is eating half her bodyweight for dinner and sleeping late. Ryan tends to be up early even if they don't have to be, but Luc's confident that she at least will be able to curl up with Boone and catnap until Ryan and Seth get bored and drag them out of bed. 

They might even come up with some kind of day-off activity that's not just fucking around, because that hasn't gotten old yet, exactly, but they're at least starting to branch out on occasion. 

Luc can't imagine being able to spend time with her girls without wanting to touch them constantly, though, and it's kind of a problem for whenever they're in public and have to behave.

Luc doesn't catch Zach looking, but Seth does, and her low, amused "you want to add something here, Z?" catches Luc's attention. 

Zach shrugs and doesn't really answer, but Luc can feel her gaze like a tangible weight, Zach's eyes on her ass, and—now that's interesting—skipping up to her tits for a second before she looks away and down at her phone.

Luc can sympathize.

Not getting laid sucks, and if Zach keeps striking out, well, Luc's not going to begrudge her a little ogling. 

"Z, you gotta find some better dates," she says, as she tucks her hand inside the cups of her bra to get it to sit better, underwire snug against her ribs. She glances down to check—yep, everything is where it's meant to be, and Luc's not about false modesty; she looks _good_.

"God," Ryan says, sounding strangled, "there should be, like, an adult content warning when you do that. Jesus, Luc."

Luc shrugs one shoulder. "Hey, it's not like you weren't—" and then she realizes just how many other people are listening and decides not to finish that sentence out loud after all. 

But still, Ryan was all over her last night, and it's not like Ryan's hands and mouth haven't covered the same ground on an almost daily basis, so Luc's not sure why she's making a big deal about it. 

Then again, Luc's eaten Ryan out so often now that she's lost count, and she still likes watching Ryan jerk off, so maybe that's the same sort of thing.

…and great, now she's getting turned on in the locker room, and that's just a non-beauty move right there. 

"I gotta say, Luc," Zach says, "If everyone giving me useless dating advice did it with that presentation it'd at least be a lot more fun for me, so thanks for that." 

She tips her head ironically, and shrugs into a fitted jacket, her curves vanishing under the cleverly cut lines, the three-piece suit making her look taller and rangier and a lot more straight-up-and-down than she is in real life. 

Luc's caught a few glimpses when they've been changing or showering or whatever, and she knows Zach's basically got the same body shape as she does. She's gotta ask her some time where she got the tux she wore to the home opener, because it was hot as fuck and Luc knows how hard that is to pull off well when you're got even medium-sized boobs. And Zach is busty; if she was the kind of girl who wore slinky dresses she'd take people's eyes out. 

…and thinking about Zach's tits is doing absolutely nothing to stop Luc getting turned on in the locker room. Goddammit. She's got to remember how to be a professional or coach is going to say something _cutting_ and like, Luc has pretty good self-esteem but that's never fun. 

There's a pause in the conversation around them, and Luc realizes that she has to say something. She's not real sure what, though.

"Look, you're super hot, just—I don't know, go scope out the OSU volleyball team or something, I bet you'll get a ton of numbers."

Luc's really not the expert here and she knows it; she doesn't really date, or at least she didn't, not until she fell into this whole thing. But Zach deserves someone who'll be there for her, too. 

"Bye, Luc," Zach says firmly, and strides out of the room.

Luc watches her go, chewing on her lip and wondering if she could've handled that better. Maybe she should've just let Zach look down her shirt some more instead, that might've been a smarter choice.

"Babe, something on your mind?" Seth asks quietly.

There's something in her tone that makes Luc suddenly very sure that Seth, at least, has picked up on something. That Seth maybe noticed the way that Luc's head turned when Zach walked out of the locker room, and maybe she's jumping to some conclusions. 

The worst part is that Luc isn't even totally sure she could call them unfair conclusions. She feels so uneasy about all of this; she loves Zach, obviously, she's a good bro and Luc is always gonna have her back, but at the same time, she doesn't want to fuck up her own relationships just because she's… distracted. 

"I'm fine," Luc says cheerily, pushing all of that to the back of her mind. 

She doesn't need to fixate on this, she can just go home and do whatever they're going to do after practice. It is, she has to admit, probably going to be about fifteen minutes or so of house work and then falling back into bed, so it's not like her life isn't going pretty damn great, really.

"Okay," Seth says, wrapping an arm around Luc, her hand warm and steady on her hip. "But, you know, if you're thinking about stuff you can tell us, you know? Doesn't have to be the end of the world." 

Luc blinks. That's—weird, but okay.

"I know," she says, and Seth ruffles her hair—and totally fucks it up, which Luc was mostly expecting.

"Let's go," Boone says impatiently, tapping her fingers on the side of the door as she leans in around the door jamb. "We have stuff to do."

"Please," Fliggy says, sounding pained, "we all know what that's code for, Boone. Just leave."

"Hey, I didn't say what the things were," Boone argues, but then ruins any sense of trying to play it cool but licking her lips exaggeratedly and leering at Nick. 

Nick just sighs, and turns to Dubi and says, "Dubi, they're doing it to me again."

Dubi snorts. "Not even Cam and Matty were ever that bad."

"You know what," Nick says, "You're right. I'm sorry for every time we fined you guys. Hey, Jonesy? _All four_ of you are fined, stop mooning around in the locker room."

"Ugh, fine," Seth says, but she doesn't let go of Luc while towing her out of the room, and that seems to be that, pretty much.

* * *

They actually do run a bunch of errands after practice. 

Seth and Boone do a grocery run—they do the bulk of the cooking just because they're better at it and tend to prefer it—and Luc and Ryan start running a bunch of laundry through Seth's in-unit, starting with sheets and then moving onto darks and then colours. Luc is fucking baller at sorting laundry, she knows her strengths. 

They make Seth's bed up again while the first load's in, and only get a little distracted making out before getting the comforter back on, and then a little more distracted loading the washing machine the second time.

Boone and Seth come back in with their arms full of groceries—both of them hate making more than one trip so there's some fairly precarious arrangements and the mozzarella is definitely going to be the worse for it—and Boone's eyebrows go all the way up when she sees Luc sitting on the dryer, topless, Ryan standing between her legs and kissing her, hands on her tits.

"I think we missed something," Boone says, deadpan.

"My shirt was dirty," Luc argues, "so we just, you know. Threw it in with everything else."

"And?" Seth says, leaning over Boone's shoulder once she's put her bags of groceries down where at least no one's going to stand on them. Hopefully. 

"I was cold," Luc says with a grin, rocking forward ever so slightly as Ryan's hands squeeze her gently, as the dryer rumbles under her ass. "Her hands are nice and warm."

"They definitely are nice," Boone says, drifting closer, not taking her eyes off them. 

"You'll have to wait to find out for yourself if they're warm though," Luc says smugly.

"Oh yeah, why?" Boone asks, playing it very casual, even though they can all can see that her knuckles are going white against the bags in her hands.

"I mean," Luc says, and she wriggles a little more, leaning forward, and Ryan moves with her. "If she moves them, I'll be naked."

"And the downside is?" Seth asks, grinning. "Besides, you're still wearing pants, Luc."

"I didn't want to clean the dryer off," Luc argues. "This was a hygiene choice."

"Uh huh," Ryan says. "I feel like I remember that part differently."

Luc smacks her ass and tries to squirm closer to Ryan. The dryer is definitely not doing anything like enough vibration to get her off, but she can't help thinking that this would be such a good position to get fucked in, and it seems like kind of a waste that Ryan's only playing with her tits and not actually going below the waist.

And because they're all modern women who communicate and all that kind of shit, she says so.

"You know, I bet Boone or Seth could help you out with that," Ryan murmurs, and Luc grins. She loves when Ryan is on the same page as her.

"I would love to," Seth says. "Except, like, after we get this stuff in the freezer, and also preferably on a bed?"

Luc pouts, and Seth leans around Ryan to kiss her, soft and quick and apologetic. 

"It's not that it's not hot, Luc, it's just—we get more than one of us on top of that dryer and we're probably looking at an emergency plumber on the weekend. And I do not want to deal with that shit."

"I guess that's fair," Luc says, and she wriggles off the dryer, and out of Ryan's hands. "We can help you with the groceries?"

"Why do I feel like this is going to be the slowest way to get this done," Boone asks rhetorically, her gaze laser-focused on Luc's chest. 

Luc's hyper-conscious all of a sudden of the way her breasts move as she straightens up, and of the way her nipples are tight and very very pink, because Ryan’d had her mouth there for a while before letting her hands take over. 

She's pretty sure Boone can tell. 

"Next time we're doing laundry and you guys can be out in public," Boone says, after a moment, like it’d taken a lot of effort to actually string a sentence together. Luc’s taking _that_ as a compliment, thanks. 

"I guess I can take that one for the team," Ryan says, also watching Luc intently, as Boone leans over to brush a kiss onto Ryan's cheek.

"Couldn't get her jeans off?" Boone asks casually, her mouth right by Ryan’s ear, with no judgment at all in her tone, but loud enough that they can all hear it.

"Got distracted by her boobs," Ryan agrees, and Luc grins to herself. "Come on, you know Seth always puts the greens in the beer drawer, we gotta at least head that one off this time."

"Fair," Boone says, and reaches over to fist-bump Ryan anyway before they all go help out in the kitchen.

There's time to move back to the bedroom later, and at least, Luc points out smugly when they do just that, those sheets are all clean.

For the time being.

* * *

Luc’s draped over Boone’s lap a couple weeks later, strappy heels dangling off her toes while she hums along with the pop song playing loudly in the bar. 

They’ve got a couple days between games, they just got back from beating the Banshees solidly, and Luc’s working on a nice buzz, two beers in and feeling good about life. 

The plane ride home had been rowdy for at least an hour after they’d taken off, even though normally most of them would try to sleep coming back from the West Coast. Nick had knelt on her seat, turning around to hang over the back of it and looking around till she’d caught everyone’s eyes and waited for them to shut up. Luc hoped she could pull that move even half as well by the time she’d been in the league that long, because _damn_.

“All right, Kelpies,” she’d said, once she had their attention. “Team night out tomorrow, 7pm at the usual place, no excuses, and anyone who needs babysitters, you’re covered from the team fund.”

There’d been a muted cheer at that, and Luc had curled up against Seth’s shoulder and hummed happily, watching the flow of twinkling lights on the land underneath them fly by, moving deeper into the night. She could sleep anywhere, usually, but sometimes it was just as nice to zone out, comfortable and calm, her lips brushing Seth’s bare skin every now and then as they listened to music with one earbud each, the muted chatter around them washing over Luc without her feeling like she had to actually listen to any of it. 

Ryan and Boone were both fast asleep before they’d even crossed the Rockies, sacked out in the pair of seats in front of them, and if it’d been any earlier in the season Luc might’ve been thinking about pranks, but with the playoffs looming only a month away, it seemed like all of them could do with the undisturbed rest. 

They’d got back to Columbus well after midnight, but any opportunity to sleep in during the season was a rare and welcome one, and it’d been a slow and lazy day after that, staying in and recovering. After a day of doing almost nothing, Luc was looking forward to an excuse to stay out late with her girls.

Seth drags Ryan over to the packed dance floor within minutes of the four of them arriving, and it only takes about another five minutes after that before they’re coming about as close as they can to public indecency, plastered all over each other and shifting with the beat. 

Luc can’t deny that she’s enjoying watching that, too. 

Boone has one hand heavy on Luc’s hip, helping her to not slide out of the booth they’re jammed together in, and the other wrapped around her beer, while Luc’s got her free arm around Boone’s shoulders. Her fingertips are pushing just up into the fine hair at the nape of her neck, scratching gently over the skin, and Boone leans back into the touch.

Dubi’s got Cam out on the dance floor too, and they’re spinning and twirling around, laughing and crashing into each other and some of the others around them while Nat cheers them on, wine glass in hand. Fligs is laughing her ass off at them, long legs stretched out from the other side of their booth, sharing a pitcher of beer with Janelle and Goose. 

Andy’s leaning over the bar, splitting her attention between one of the bartenders—a tall, incredibly buff black man whose biceps rival even Savvy’s, and a girl next to her who Luc can’t see well enough to make out more than an impression of long, perfectly straight black hair falling almost to her ass. Luc has to admire Josh just going for it like that, honestly. She’d have thought the vaguely androgynous looking bartender covering the other half of the bar was more Josh’s usual taste, but they’ve been flat out pouring jugs of beer every time Luc’s looked over, without sparing Josh or anyone else a second glance. 

Boone turns her head to Luc, smiles at her from close up, and Luc feels her heart flutter. She’s never going to get used to this.

“Having fun?” Boone asks, her mouth right next to Luc’s ear so that she can actually hear better. 

Luc wriggles pointedly and appreciates the way that makes Boone’s hand slip down to her butt, and she enjoys Boone shamelessly taking advantage to cop a feel even more. Her dress is long enough that she wasn’t freezing while they walked outside, and also that she’s probably not at risk of flashing anyone however much she sprawls over Boone or Seth and Ryan when they come back, but it’s also tight enough that Boone is probably—Luc can feel Boone laughing quietly against her ear—just now discovering that Luc isn’t wearing underwear. 

“Ohh,” Boone says slowly. “You’re a fucking menace, Dubois.”

Luc smirks at her, knows the affection is clear on her face and just shrugs. “I try.”

“Oh my god,” Zach says from the opposite side of the table, letting her head fall down onto the sticky surface as she dramatically covers her ears. “Can you guys go, like, five minutes without being all gooey?”

Luc feels a little bad. She doesn’t want to rub it in that Zach hasn’t picked up like the last four or five times they’ve been out together, that she hasn’t, as far as Luc knows, dated anyone since Luc joined the team. She’d thought at first that Zach and Josh had a thing going on, and they were certainly handsy enough with each other, but apparently that was just… how they were. 

Josh’s type tends to be a lot louder than Zach, going by the parade of guys and girls that Luc’s seen _her_ with. 

“Sorry,” Luc says, shrugging helplessly. It’s not like she waited for an audience on purpose. 

Boone tightens her grip, as if Luc was even going to try to move. She doesn’t want to upset Zach, but, like, come on. 

“Jealous?” Boone asks.

Zach sighs so loudly that Luc can actually hear her over the music, which is actually pretty impressive.

“I’m too sober for this, c’mon, Jenns, you owe me one.” 

Zach’s probably blocked multiple shots due to fuck-ups that they’ve all made, by this point in the season, and Luc fully respects her hustle on trying to use that fact.

Zach makes an attempt at grabbing for Boone’s pint glass, the only one on the table with more than dregs left in it, and Boone immediately moves it just out of her reach. 

Luc’s reminded, yet again, that Boone has brothers too. 

“Go get your own drink,” she says. “I know you can afford it.”

“Ugh. I’ll pay if you go,” Zach tries, and Luc frowns. 

This isn’t like Zach; this isn’t teasing for the hell of it, or just being a pest because it’s funny, this is Zach being weird and sad and avoidant and it makes Luc feel shitty, too. Zach shouldn’t sound like that; Zach should sound, okay, kind of like a monotone hockey robot but at least one that’s enjoying herself even if she doesn’t want to admit it.

“Z?” Luc says. “What’s wrong?”

Zach pulls a truly impressive face, slouching in the bench seat and turning the woe up to 11. “The bartender ghosted me,” she says eventually.

“You just gotta like wave a twenty at them, even if you are short they’ll see you then,” Boone says, not particularly helpfully. Luc elbows her in the ribs.

“You’re like half an inch taller than me,” Zach is protesting, distracted from her original point, but Luc’s already filled in the dots there.

“She doesn’t mean it took too long to get a drink, Boone,” Luc says, enjoying her night out a whole lot less all of a sudden. “She means they went on a date and then Z never heard from her again.”

“Oh!” Boone pauses for a second, and then her face rearranges into something a lot more sympathetic. “Dude, that sucks. I’m sorry, you could’ve said you wanted to go somewhere else instead, we’d have had your back!”

“Didn’t know she worked here,” Zach says after a second. She looks uncertain, like she wasn’t expecting sympathy—which makes Luc feel like even more of a monster—or like she’s not sure it’s relevant. Who can tell, with Zach. 

Boone takes another, longer look at the bartender, and Luc follows her gaze; gets an impression of reddish-brown hair, white skin, tattoos winding from her wrists and halfway up her arms. Luc can’t fault Z’s taste, really. 

Boone just shrugs. “I mean, that sucks, I’m sorry, Z. She’s not even that hot, like. You can do better.”

“Ugh, I’m going home,” Zach says, and does just that.

“Boone,” Luc hisses, twisting on the spot to look at her properly and wondering how her girlfriend can possibly be this good at her own relationships and also that bad at understanding other people—well, non-Ryan people, anyway—in theirs. “That wasn’t _helping_.”

“She can though!” Boone protests, and then her hand curves over the swell of Luc’s ass again, holding her closer. Luc’s breath catches in her throat. “Anyway, forget Z, you wanna grab the other two and head home?” Boone’s hand cups Luc’s backside suggestively, and Luc kind of suspects they might not make it all the way home first. Not that she has a problem with that.

The image of Z stomping through the crowd to grab her coat and going home alone does pop back into her head once or twice afterward, though.

* * *

Luc thinks she has the gym to herself, a couple weeks later, and hums happily before starting her circuit. She’ll wait till there’s someone else around to spot her for some of it, of course, but she can definitely do legs with all this glorious space, time and the opportunity to sing along to her playlist as loudly and badly as she wants.

She’s sweating hard and wiping her face off at the end of a set of squats when she realizes the blue and silver blur in the corner of her eye isn’t actually a machine, but Zach.

“Oops,” Luc says, mid-lyric, and grins at her. She holds out an earbud. “I can put this on the speaker if you don’t have your phone.”

Zach shrugs, “Nah, I’m good, thanks though,” and pats her back pocket with a grin. As she turns to go work on the bars in the corner, Luc can see the outline of her phone in there. And, now that she’s slightly less flustered—however much she didn’t want to act like it—okay, sure, she can see the headphones slung around Zach’s neck as well. 

They weren’t in her ears though, so whatever, Luc’s not that bad at observation. 

“Her butt’s gotta be as good as Larkin’s, right?” Seth says, right by Luc’s ear, and this time Luc does jump. And bite back a startled shriek; she did not see or hear Seth coming at all.

Luc presses a hand to her chest and twists around to glare. 

Seth’s openly laughing at her, eyes dancing, grinning broadly.

Luc tries to glare, but it’s hard to even take herself seriously when her hair is sticking to her face and neck, and she knows she’s bright red and still kind of panting from her last set of reps. 

“Ugh, you dick. Warn a girl.”

“What, and rob you of the chance to ogle in peace?” Seth’s teasing, Luc knows that; there’s no hint of anything else in her face or her tone. Seth flicks a glance over to where Zach’s doing pull-ups and stares for a long moment herself. 

Luc blushes even harder, and hopes that Zach can’t hear either of them. 

“Seth,” she protests.

Seth gives her the same soft, fond grin she does whenever Luc’s cuddled up close to her, and ducks down to kiss her cheek. It’s quick, and not at all sexual; Luc wouldn’t have blushed if anyone in the world was looking at them for that, but it makes her feel all gooey inside, the constant reminder that Seth cares so much. 

“Hey, you’re not a hockeybot 3000, of course you look sometimes,” Seth says after a moment. “Who wouldn’t?”

Luc takes a second to parse that. 

“Zach’s not a robot,” she says quietly, and Seth wraps an arm around her—even though Luc is gross and sweaty—and says, “I know she’s not.”

There’s something in Seth’s eyes as she looks over at Zach again herself, her gaze lingering in a way that Luc kind of recognizes, concern in the set of her mouth. Like Seth’s maybe been noticing what Luc has, like she’s a little worried about her D-partner as well.

“She’ll figure it out,” Seth says softly, and Luc’s not sure if she’s trying to convince Luc or herself. “Give her time. You wanna come spot me?”

“Yeah,” Luc says, watching out of the corner of her eye as Zach—headphones in and giving no indication she’s paying attention to anyone else in the world—piles more weights on the leg press.

* * *

It’s a lazy morning where they have the whole day off, absolutely nothing planned other than dragging themselves out of bed at some point for breakfast, and Luc’s idly thinking about whether she can be bothered moving in time for them to make the brunch service at the new place Goose recced in Short North. 

She’s distracted by watching Seth try to stretch out a tight hamstring, ignoring whatever hushed conversation Ryan and Boone are having with their heads together, still curled up under the blankets. Luc never thought she’d get to like sleeping in the middle, but she really does. And she’s only stepped on Seth like, one time, getting up to pee in the middle of the night. 

Ryan’s much worse about getting up without waking everyone else up, or at least that’s Luc’s story and she’s sticking to it.

But it seems like a completely ordinary day, and that’s the reason it takes Luc completely by surprise when Seth pops back to her feet, sits cross-legged on the mattress by Luc’s hip and says, “So, are we talking about this now?”

Luc blinks. 

She’s not sure what there is to talk about, unless it’s Seth finally following through on demanding they do yoga with her first thing in the morning, which Luc would actually be fine with. 

She likes yoga just fine, and staring at Seth’s butt in leggings is never a hardship. 

Boone curls closer to her, links their fingers together and squeezes her hand gently, and Luc’s not sure whether she should find that cute or _massively_ concerning. 

“Guys?” she says, and she knows her voice is doing something embarrassing. 

Boone presses a fast kiss to the top of her shoulder, and Luc relaxes a little. It can’t be bad if Boone’s doing that. 

“I think we should’ve talked about this more first,” Ryan says, sleepy and just a little cranky with it.

“No,” Seth says, like it’s an argument they’ve had more than once, and Luc’s right back to worried again. 

Boone’s the one who actually starts making sense, though.

“We agreed that it would be shitty to talk about it without Luc,” she says, and Luc turns her head to look at her, gaze flicking from her face to Ryan’s to Seth’s, all three of them focused on her. Luc feels a momentary flash of guilt, the instinctive cringe while she scans her conscience to try and remember what she did wrong, and comes up with a blank.

“Hey, no, you’re fine,” Ryan assures her, chewing on her bottom lip. “It’s just—we kind of noticed, um.” Ryan waits a beat, but neither Boone nor Seth jump in to take over, and she sighs, mutters, “Chickens,” under her breath and then keeps going. “We kind of noticed Zach’s been a little down recently. And that you noticed it, too.”

Luc’s not sure why this merited the intervention-style conversation first thing in the morning, but it’s not like they’re wrong, and she has been worried. So maybe they have some idea of how to help Zach out. Maybe Boone knows someone who would be a good match with her, Luc thinks. Boone knows _everyone_.

“Yeah,” Luc says. “She’s—I don’t know, it seems like she’s had some shitty luck picking up lately, or just dating or, I don’t know, doing whatever it is Zach likes? But it sucks that she’s sad, so I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed.”

“Luc,” Seth says, and then she frowns again, and Luc gets slightly distracted by how good her brows look, and how she wishes hers were that good. Seth’s just so fucking hot, it blows Luc’s mind, like, every time she looks at her. Every time she looks at any of them. “Luc,” Seth says again, more pointedly, and Luc blushes a little and flaps her free hand at Seth for her to keep talking, saying, “Sorry, sorry, I’m listening.”

“Did Zach actually tell you what was wrong?” Boone asks, and Luc turns to face her head on.

“No,” Luc says, and she knows she’s pouting. “She just, um, hinted about it, and made that face, you know—” “Yeah,” says Seth with a sigh, and, “No?” Boone says, frowning more. 

Boone and Seth exchange a look that Luc can’t read at all. 

Ryan glares at both of them but doesn’t say anything either, just picks up Luc’s other hand and tangles their fingers together, squeezing gently. Luc gives her a quick grin, lets her fingertips rub over Ryan’s knuckles. 

Ryan is a very calming person, or at least she is when everyone has their clothes on and they’re not trying to play video games. Luc always feels so much more capable around Ryan, like Ryan has high expectations for them all and like her very presence just makes Luc, like, better at everything. It’s a pretty cool super power, not that Luc has compared notes on if anyone else thinks that too. Luc doesn’t have to share every thought that passes over her mind.

“We wanted to talk about that,” Ryan says. 

Luc’s not sure where this is going, and she’s really not sure she likes that. 

“Seth thinks you might want to help,” Boone says, a lot more bluntly. Luc still feels like she’s playing catch-up.

“Seth thinks you might be _able_ to help,” Seth corrects, and she sounds fine, but Luc can see the way that Seth’s fingers are linked tightly with Boone’s as well, like she’s a lot more tense about this conversation than she wants to let on.

Which doesn’t help Luc at all. 

“Um?” Luc says, embarrassingly high-pitched.

Ryan closes her eyes for a moment and inhales, slow and steady. She holds her breath for a couple seconds and then exhales slowly, and Luc subconsciously follows suit, squeezing Ryan’s hand softly. 

Ryan gives her a tiny smile, eyes open again, and cuts right to it. 

“It’s okay with us, if you want to,” she says. “If Zach’s interested, and if we’re not wrong that you are too, well. We trust you, and we trust Zach. That’s what we want to talk about.”

Luc blinks. She can’t be—Ryan can’t be implying what Luc thinks she is. 

“I don’t—but we’re—” Luc flounders, looking at them each in turn, and finding only concern and affection in return. “I’m sorry, are you saying you want me to fuck around with Zach?”

“I mean, that’s up to you,” Boone says, because Boone is a dick, “if you want to _make love_ , then—”

“Ew,” Luc says, “I’m not fucking _you_ if you call it that again. But seriously, you—I don’t understand.”

“You like Zach, right?” Seth says, and Luc wishes she had another hand, that she could be touching Seth right now too. It seems wrong not to be, but there’s only so much Luc can do at once, and thinking _that_ is just one more reason they can’t actually be saying what Luc thinks they’re trying to. 

“Yeah,” Luc says, carefully. Of course she likes Zach. Everyone likes Zach.

Seth growls under her breath, and Luc’s so gone on her that that’s hot, too, instead of the warning sign it should’ve been. 

“Luc,” she says pointedly, and lets go of Boone long enough to put her hands on Luc’s knees, leaning into her space, so Luc’s surrounded; Boone and Ryan at each shoulder, Seth right in front of her. “You know what I mean.”

Luc swallows hard, feels tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She can’t—she can’t fuck this up already; it’s still so new and she’s only just started to really find her feet, to be able to lean on their relationship, and now she’s fucking it up for all of them just because she can’t stop noticing Zach. Can’t stop thinking about her, even when she shouldn’t. And the four of them work so well together that Luc isn’t even sure the three of them would last without her. That’s not ego; it’s taken them a while to find a balance that works for all of them, and then here’s Luc, casually upending it all.

“PL, babe, stop looking like that,” Boone says, sounding rawer than Luc thinks she’s ever heard her. “It’s okay. _You’re_ okay.” 

Ryan’s just holding her hand even tighter.

Luc tries to swallow around the lump in her throat. “I don’t understand,” she says softly. “I didn’t—I tried not to, I don’t want to hurt any of you.” 

“We know that,” Seth says, eyes steady and warm on hers, and she doesn’t look tense and choked up like Ryan and Boone do. Like Luc knows she is too. “We’re trying to tell you,” and here Seth narrows her eyes at Ryan and mouths, “Shhhh,” when Ryan opens her mouth to take over. 

Ryan doesn’t say anything, but there’s a set to her jaw that makes Luc think she’ll have something to say to Seth later. Luc’s mind automatically starts to picture that, the way Ryan and Seth spark off each other on the rare occasions they do clash, and it should be hot—it is hot—but she’s not entirely sure she’s still allowed to think that. 

“We are trying to say,” Seth says, starting over, “that we’re okay with it. If you want to, uh. See where things go with Zach.”

Luc blinks. 

She’d—well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t hoped that was where they were going with all of this. It just felt—too convenient. Too easy. Like she was getting away with something, and Luc’s always had an over-anxious conscience. 

“Seriously?” she says, trying not to squeak. She has some dignity to maintain. 

Ryan gives her an easier smile then, and Luc wonders for a second just what Ryan had been so afraid of, for a second there. She doesn’t manage to hold onto the thought long enough to work out how to ask, though. Not when Boone’s leaning in again, pressing kisses up her shoulder and over the side of her throat.

“Of course we’re serious,” Boone says. “I think we’re solid enough that if something happens, well. There’s nothing wrong with that. We all know what’s on the table here, Luc. We like Zach, we love you, and it kind of seems like it might be good for both of you.”

“I mean, don’t get us wrong,” Seth adds, leaning over to brush a quick kiss over Luc’s mouth, settling back with a much more relaxed expression. “We want you to tell us _all about it_ , if something does happen. That’s all. That’s the condition.”

“That’s—” Luc trails off, still too shocked to be able to even come up with a coherent thought. “And you just all…decided to be okay with this?”

Ryan pats her shoulder. “Babe, you know by now we’re all good at sharing.”

That’s absolutely not true, even if most of their squabbling since they started hooking up hasn’t been particularly serious, but she gets what they’re trying to offer her. It can’t be as easy as they’re trying to make it sound, but Luc appreciates the effort. That counts for something all by itself. 

Luc barks out a laugh. “Fuck, I guess. God, how are you all even real?”

“We’re very real,” Ryan says, slipping her arm around Luc, and making Boone gasp when she pinches her side pointedly as well, a hint and a tease. She glances theatrically towards Seth’s alarm clock, and goes on with a significant emphasis. “Want to confirm that to your satisfaction right now?”

Luc tries to agree—would trip over herself in the rush to do so if it was physically possible—but Seth’s leaning in again as well, kissing her hot and fervently, like she’s trying to reinforce everything they’ve just said, comfort and trust and affection, all tangled up together. 

Luc closes her eyes, kisses back, her hands gripping Boone and Ryan’s tightly. She does know, she does trust them. She loves them, and apparently that’s enough, there’s space left over for something more if she wants that too.

Luc’s still not entirely sure if she does—or, more importantly, if Zach does—but it’s good to know it’s on the table.

It’s good to know what the limits are, and to know that everything else is possible.

* * *

Luc doesn’t make a move right away.

She doesn’t want to fuck this up, for Zach or for anyone else, and that means not being a jackass who runs in head first and tries to stick a hand down Zach’s pants, even if that might be easier and faster. She’s got to think it through, figure out how to approach it, how to explain to Zach exactly what’s on the table.

And that’s all assuming that Zach’s into her.

Luc’s not stuck up enough to assume everyone wants to get with her, and snooping on Zach’s dates and hookups and attempts to pick up hasn’t given her any idea about what Zach’s usual type is anyway, so she can’t even rule herself in or out to start with. 

Mostly, she keeps watching, tries to pay attention to what Zach says and what she doesn’t; to who Zach hangs out with, who Zach gravitates to, to the lines around her eyes that crease up with she’s concentrating, or the tiny dimple on one side of her mouth that you can only see when she’s grinning. And Zach grinning is rare enough that Luc kind of feels like she could name and date every time she’s seen it.

…and that should probably have been a clue a lot earlier that she was looking more than she’d realized.

They’re at a fan event a few weeks later when an opportunity opens up in front of her, and Luc doesn’t bother looking too long before leaping. If there’s anything she’s learned by now, it’s that over-thinking just means you’re going to miss your shot. 

She’s sharing a signing table with Zach, the two of them on PR duty for the afternoon, and there’s a ton of people lined up for autographs, which is cool all by itself. 

Luc loses count of how many adorably tiny Kelpies jerseys she signs, for the kids who are shy and hiding behind their parents, and for the ones that bounce right up to her and announce that they want to be Kelpies too, and fuck, Luc just has the greatest job in the world. 

And as cool as it is to get to be the one little kids want to grow up to be—Luc remembers when that was her, looking at the boys her dad coached—the older ones are the ones who really get to her, a shot straight to the gut of pride and joy and fierce protectiveness, seeing girls who are maybe a year or three younger than she is look at her seriously and ask for advice on what to do, how to get to where she is. 

It’s basically the coolest thing ever, and Luc’s never going to take it for granted.

The crowd is a lot more diverse than it would’ve been a few years ago, probably—and not just because they’re female athletes and have a bunch of out, queer women on the team. The Kelpies and the Jackets have teamed up to pour a ton of money into getting lower income kids around Columbus into the game, and the crowd waiting around for autographs looks a lot more like the rest of the city than it used to back when Luc was watching the NHL on TV. 

The sportswear place they’re partnering with for this event has done a really great job, too. 

Not just in advertising—Luc thinks it might be the longest line she’s had yet—but in keeping things moving and moderating it as best as they can.

Luc overheard just enough of the speech the store manager is giving people in the middle of the line every few minutes to know they’re getting her new favorite variation of the ‘don’t be creepy’ speech, with the net result that very few twenty-something year old white guys have even tried to hit on her for a change. And the few that did try take the ‘no thanks’ with a lot more grace than usual. 

Luc’s strongly considering calling the Kelpies PR team and asking them to poach the store staff, because they’re amazing and possibly also magic? Luc’s definitely coming back there next time she needs protein powder or whatever. 

The store manager is also pretty hot, actually, and Luc takes a second, longer look at her, the next time she comes over to check if they need water or new sharpies or a break or anything else. She’s tall—Zach seems to like tall—dark haired and dark-skinned, with most of her hair in braids that go halfway down her back, and a side-shave that’s just starting to grow out. 

Luc’s just about to nudge Zach in the ribs and tell her she should ask her out, or make a move, or _something_ , when she sees the store manager spin around at a greeting and absolutely beam at the tiny Latina woman approaching her. They kiss in greeting, and it’s fast and almost chaste, but there’s enough heat there for Luc to feel a little flushed—they make a nice picture and she’s not blind—and for her to realize there’s probably not much point in telling Zach to make a move after all. 

Back to plan B, then.

Luc can’t lie, she’s pretty fucking into plan B.

“What?” Zach says, catching her eye, and Luc just gives her a weak grin and says, “Nothing, I totally lost track of what I was gonna say.”

Zach shakes her head, mock-chastising, and calls her weak, but she also slides a pack of gum across the table for Luc, which is super thoughtful considering that Luc definitely winds up chatting longer than she’s supposed to with everyone who she’s signing for, and her mouth’s getting pretty dry by then. 

Zach’s carefully-hidden sweetheart side is pretty appealing; Luc can’t deny that. 

“What’ve you got planned for later?” Luc asks, when there’s finally a break in the line, and it’s starting to look like they’ll get out of there maybe only a half hour late. By their standards, that’s pretty great. Although Luc’s never going to complain about drawing a crowd, not until they’re selling out Nationwide for every game too. 

Zach shrugs. “I dunno, might go out.”

“Where?” Luc asks. She doesn’t have anything planned, and since the universe didn’t give her a get-out-of-this-awkward-conversation-free card by dropping an incredibly hot and single woman in front of Zach after all, well. Maybe it is time to make an attempt herself after all. 

See if Zach’s as open as the others think she is. 

Luc’s still not sure if they were seeing what Luc wanted them to see more than anything that was actually there, and the only way to find out if they’re right about that is to ask and—

Luc’ll pass on that one for now, thanks. 

Maybe if she has some one-on-one time with Zach she can feel her out on the topic a little more gently. More subtly. In conversation. So that Zach doesn’t get all prickly and defensive and upset. 

Luc really, really doesn’t want to step on Zach’s feelings, even though Zach would absolutely kick her ass for ever even acknowledging that Zach probably does have feelings after all. Zach chirps them right back when they make robot jokes at her, but Luc’s always had the impression that Zach kind of prefers it that way. That if they’re making R2-D2 noises at her when she holds a straight face longer than anyone else can even in the face of Nasher being fucking ridiculous, then she doesn’t have to admit to having softer parts.

Luc really likes what she’s seen of Zach’s softer side. And miracle of miracles, Luc’s mostly even not meaning that as innuendo.

Mostly.

Zach reaches over the table and pokes Luc in the biceps with her sharpie. It makes a big golden splotch, right in the middle of her ink, and Luc’s distracted for a second, wondering if she should maybe branch out into color with the next tattoo. 

“Earth to Luc?”

Luc blinks and tries to kick her brain back into gear in a hurry. “Sorry, distracted. You wanna get a drink after this?”

Zach looks at her for a second, not saying anything.

Luc raises one eyebrow and does her best to broadcast a judgmental look. Ryan insists on calling it her Spock impression, and frankly Luc maintains that she has much better brows than Zach Quinto, but Ryan just looks baffled every time Luc tries to argue about the minutiae there. 

Zach swallows whatever she’s about to say and licks her lips, and Luc’s just tired and done with all of this enough to not hide the way she’s watching.

She’s not sure Zach’s noticed. And she’s not sure whether she thinks that’s good or not. 

“Don’t you have, uh, plans?” Zach asks eventually.

Luc shrugs. “Not really. You?”

Zach gives her a longer look, frowning slightly. Luc must be getting to her some if she’s giving away even that much; Zach’s commitment to the poker face is unparalleled. 

“You don’t need to go do something that involves an enormous amount of TMI with Seth or Boone and Ryan…?”

Luc frowns. 

They’re not that bad. Are they? She’s never thought they go particularly far past the lines anyone else on the team would go up to. And usually if one of them says something a little risque, or if someone walks past when they’ve been pushing their luck about how much kissing is workplace-appropriate, then people _laugh_. 

Luc didn’t think they’d been rude, or—or off-putting, or whatever it is that’s making Zach give her that look.

Luc feels slightly sick, all of a sudden, her face too hot and everything too loud. This is not working out the way she hoped. And god, how dumb is she, to think that Zach might be interested, rather than just—putting up with her.

“Sorry,” she says faintly, staring down at the pile of Kelpies trading cards scattered in front of her, blinking back the incredibly embarrassing sting of tears that have gathered unexpectedly. Fuck. What is _wrong_ with her? She tries to focus on the navy and silver logo, the jersey she’s been so proud and excited to wear ever since Columbus drafted her.

She feels a little overheated, sitting there in her actual jersey, even though there’s snow on the ground outside and her coat is hanging off the back of the chair. 

“Luc?” Zach asks, and then she reaches over, presses the back of her hand to Luc’s forehead. “You’re really red.”

“I’m so bad at this,” Luc moans, and puts her head down on the table. There’s no fans left waiting, she can have a minor meltdown in relative peace. 

“You’re being much weirder than usual,” Zach says.

Luc just groans and tries to give herself a pep talk. It’s much easier when she’s got someone in her ear, encouraging her and—she knows her girlfriends—probably copping a feel at the same time.

Clearly they’ve all been broken by hockey; the idea of someone cheerfully slapping her ass and saying “go get ‘em” should not actually be inspiring. 

“Sorry, Zach,” she says, sitting up again, and trying to push her hair out of her eyes. 

Zach’s just staring at her, which means either Luc’s really hitting peak disaster even earlier than anyone could have predicted, or she has something on her face.

Zach reaches over and peels a trading card off Luc’s cheek. “You had a little—” she looks down at it, and snorts. “Fliggy on your face?”

Luc goes a little cross-eyed, trying to focus on the card Zach’s holding up. It’s her taking a one-timer, Nick as a screen in front of the Leviathan goalie, both of them wearing classic embarrassing-slash-hilarious game faces. 

“Well, that’s a new one,” Luc says without thinking about it, and then imagines that, and if the grin cracking Zach’s expression is any indication, she’s done the same thing.

“Oh my god,” Zach says faintly. “That’s—wow. Bob would kill you.”

Luc raises an eyebrow. “Bob? _Janelle_ would kill me.”

“I mean, she could step on me,” Zach says feelingly, and Luc takes a moment to think about that and says, “Amen.”

“I feel like we’re supposed to toast now,” Zach says, after they’ve shared the moment. 

“So, yeah,” Luc says. “Drink, then?”

“Fuck, why not,” Zach says, and then she pins Luc with a significant look. “No wingmanning, this time.”

Luc chokes a little.

“Excuse me?”

“Just, every time you try to help me pick up, I wind up getting shot down twice as hard,” Zach says, with a shrug that says she doesn’t care all that much. Luc’s not sure she believes it. “Please stop helping,” she adds, and it’s sharp enough that Luc winces.

Well.

Message received, then.

Luc isn’t sure what to say to that, and she doesn’t need to, it turns out, as the store manager comes back over to thank them again and let them know they’re good to go.

Luc pops to her feet to say thanks and goodbye to the rest of the store staff who’re clearing away the table and chairs, signs a few more things for them and grins for selfies, poses as she’s asked, but it feels like it’s all happening at a remove. 

Just out of reach, Zach’s doing all the same things, and Luc even catches her grinning at a seven year old who’d run up at the very last minute and asked to get her stick signed. She tries not to notice the way that makes her feel warm and fuzzy inside. 

It really sucks to have finally let herself admit she has feelings for Zach just in time to get shot the hell down.

Luc shrugs back into her coat and wonders if she should ditch out on the drink plan after all. She doesn’t get long to worry about it; Zach steps over to her and knocks their shoulders together, lets the corner of her mouth crook upwards and asks, “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Luc says. 

She can just go with the flow, and then go home and try to forget how badly she’s fumbling this once she’s smoothed things over with Zach. 

Somewhat inevitably, they wind up at one of the bars downtown that the team frequent after games. Luc’s not sure why she expected anything else, but it’s not like she had any other suggestions, so she leaves Zach at a table and goes up to get them both drinks. 

“Thanks,” Zach says quietly, when Luc sits opposite her again. 

Luc spins her glass in slow circles on the coaster, her fingers slipping in the condensation beading up on the sides. 

“So,” she says, after Zach doesn’t add anything else. “How, uh, are things going?”

Zach takes a long drink, and Luc’s eyes widen a little as Zach downs half the glass in one go; that’s much faster than she usually drinks. 

“Can I just say how much it sucks to get the ‘oh, have you found a date yet’ talk from someone younger than you?” Zach says.

Luc can imagine. It’s not like she’s doing this on purpose. It’s not like she wouldn’t be happy for Zach if she did find someone—when she _does_ find someone; it’s not Zach’s fault that Luc’s greedy and selfish and too easily attached. 

“We just want you to be happy,” Luc says quietly, and she doesn’t miss the way Zach cringes. 

“I know I just have to, like, get over myself,” she says. “It’s easier said than done, you know?”

“Yeah,” Luc says with feeling. “But, like, you’re super hot, and I know a ton of people would be into you, you just gotta, uh. Find the one you click with, I guess.” The words feel sharp-edged, like they’re trying to catch in her throat. Luc does just want Zach to be happy; she wants her to have nice things, like orgasms and kisses and a girlfriend who’ll give them to her. Luc’s the luckiest girl in the world and she knows it; she just wishes Zach could get some of that as well. 

Especially since it seems like she’s so bummed out about not having someone to come home to.

“You say that like it’s so easy,” Zach grumbles, and finishes the rest of her drink. 

Luc’s not sure if she should try to slow Zach down or catch up with her. 

“I mean, it’ll probably happen when you least expect it,” Luc says, wishing she didn’t know just how fucking stupid that platitude sounds. How much worse it is coming from someone who’s in a relationship. 

Some days Luc is really fucking glad the four of them fell into bed together and rendered the whole ‘is this happening or are we just flirting for the hell of it?’ question moot. She’s never been good at that part herself, and trying to encourage Zach to get there with someone else is harder than she’d imagined it would be. It’s too easy to let herself slip, to start to fantasize something else. To imagine she can just invite Zach in, on every level. 

Luc’s maybe in a little more trouble than she wants to admit. 

And Zach agrees with her, it seems like, because she kicks Luc under the table, pulling no punches and definitely leaving a bruise high up her calf. Okay, yeah, Luc probably had that one coming. Not that she’s going to admit that; a lifetime of being the youngest sibling means never giving up on at least the illusion of the higher ground.

“Ow,” Luc complains. “I bought you a drink and everything.”

“Yeah, like that means anything,” Zach grumbles.

Luc’s eyes narrow. 

She’s backed off, when Zach hinted that she should; she’s not pushing, she’s not even trying to find someone cute to point out to Zach. They’re just having a drink and then Luc’s gonna go home and report back just how bad she failed this one. Although: at least she’s probably going to get consolation sex from at least one of her girlfriends, so it’s not like she’d expect a lot of sympathy from anyone else in the world. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Luc asks. 

Zach gives her a disbelieving look. “Are you really gonna rub my face in it?”

Luc rubs her eyes and frowns. She has to admit, now she’s lost, and she doesn’t think it’s an English-French thing. Someone, somewhere, has the wrong end of a stick, and she’s suddenly—heartstoppingly, hopefully—convinced that maybe that person is her as well as Zach.

“I think we’re confusing things,” she says at last. “What do you think we’re doing here today?”

Zach gnaws on the side of her thumbnail and doesn’t make eye contact.

Luc kicks her under the table. Okay, so Luc’s not above resorting to childish things either, so sue her. 

Zach sulks some more, and slouches in the booth seat. It doesn’t, Luc notes with more than a little irritation, make her any less attractive. And the low key oral fixation is also a problem, in that every time Zach puts anything in her mouth Luc has to remind herself that it’s not cool to fantasize about a teammate you’re not banging. At least, not so specifically. And Zach makes her want to specify quite a few things, at length, in detail.

Luc shifts on her seat and hopes Zach can’t actually guess why she’s squirming. 

“If this is the official Kelpies ‘stop whining and go get laid already’ pep talk, I’m _trying_ ,” Zach says eventually. 

“You’re not trying that hard,” Luc says without thinking, and then as she hears how that sounds out loud she reaches across the table to cover Zach’s hand with her own. “Wait, sorry, that—that came out wrong.”

Zach laughs, rueful; a little mad, a little sad. There’s enough of an undercurrent to it that Luc can tell she’s genuinely upset and trying to hide it. 

“It’s fine, Luc. I know I suck at this, you know? It’s not news. And if Josh wasn’t, well.” She shrugs, waves a hand, and Luc’s not sure what Josh is or isn’t, but going by that comment, seems like the answer is ‘definitely not in Zach’s long-term plans’.

It’s probably shitty of her that it feels like a relief. 

Luc’s not trying to get into Zach’s pants, or at least that’s not her primary goal, no matter what everyone else says; it can’t be. 

She just wants Zach to be happier, and if that’s with someone else, then Luc’ll help her game plan. And if that’s with Luc’s own two hands and everything else, well. 

That’s just a bonus. Luc can’t get ahead of herself. 

“Seriously, do you want to talk about it?” Luc asks. Maybe Zach’s come around a bit more by now, eased in by the conversation and the drink that she’s already half-way through.

Zach makes a truly incredible disgusted face and says, “No!”

“Ah, yes, I forgot. Allergic to feelings,” Luc says, nodding to herself, and looking up through her lashes at Zach across the table from her. 

Zach looks momentarily outraged, and then she seems to catch herself just in time before rising to the same bait the rest of the team use on her all the time. Luc’s not ashamed to fall back on habit when she’s less certain of the steadiness of her ground. 

“Dick,” Zach mutters, and Luc smirks at her and deletes at least three responses that are definitely too much information. She’s meant to be taking this slow and careful, and just because Zach’s given her a perfect chance to say something truly filthy isn’t enough of an excuse to do it. But god, she wants to. 

“You want another drink?” Luc asks, after they’ve been sitting there for a while. Maybe another beer will help her think. 

“I wanna see if they have anything better on tap,” Zach says, following Luc over to the bar. Luc didn’t quite expect that, but it does give her an excuse to crowd up against Zach while they wait for the bartender to work her way back to them, to lean over Zach’s shoulder and pretend like she’s scanning the bar for herself.

“Ugh, you’re too tall,” Zach says, leaning back into her, swatting at Luc with the hand her wallet isn’t in. 

Luc’s maybe a fraction taller than Zach in bare feet, but she has to admit the heels give her a couple extra inches and she’s not afraid to use them.

“That’s not what your mom said,” Luc replies, and surprises Zach enough that she bursts out laughing, finally relaxing all the way for the first time all day.

It isn’t exactly the way Luc had planned to do that, but she can’t argue with the results. 

“Get me a beer, Z,” she says instead, and doesn’t shift away, not even when the guy beside them slides off his bar stool and wanders away. 

Zach hands her card over to the bartender and points at some craft beer that Luc recognized the label of well enough to know that it’s a local brewery, but not anything that Ryan keeps in the fridge at home. 

“Thanks,” Luc says, and takes a sip. 

She doesn’t move.

Neither does Zach.

“You wanna… sit at the bar instead?” Zach asks slowly, halfway through her pint. 

There’s a stool right by Luc’s hip, and another empty one beside Zach so Luc just shrugs and says “Sure,” sliding onto the stool, and turning to face Zach. Letting their knees press together.

Luc’s pretty sure she used to be smoother than this—how many girls had she picked up over the last few years? But this means more than that ever had, and it’s fucking with her nerves. She’s getting desperate, and running out of ideas faster than she is beer. 

“Uh, Luc,” Zach says a few seconds later, as Luc puts her empty glass down and lets her hand drift to Zach’s leg, fingertips pushing through the artfully-ripped hole in the knee of her jeans. “In case you’re forgetting, this is me here, not—not Seth, or, uh. Anyone else.”

Luc feels her heart-rate pick up at the slightly strangled tone in Zach’s voice. 

Now she’s getting somewhere. 

“I know,” she says, and waits for Zach to look right at her.

Zach looks—strung out, when she does; edgy and pricklier than normal, a hectic flush high in her cheeks, and Luc doesn’t think it’s the beer. They’ve both got a much higher tolerance than this.

“Luc—” Zach says after a second, and they could be alone in the room for all Luc knows, all she cares. Everything’s narrowed down to just Zach, and the way she blushes hot as Luc deliberately looks her up and down. As Luc lets herself fully appreciate the muscle of her quads and calves, outlined in tight denim. As Luc’s eyes take in the curve of her waist, the tiniest glimpse of cleavage under her half-zipped hoodie, the swell of her biceps and the delicate bones of her wrist. It’s the most overt move Luc’s made ever since she caught herself wanting to, and there’s no way Zach can miss it.

No way Zach can misinterpret it.

“Oh fuck you,” Zach hisses, jaw clenched, and apparently Luc was dead wrong about that one.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t mess with me, it’s not funny,” Zach bites out, standing up, the stool scraping loudly across the floor, and Luc can see the future for a split-second; Zach’s about to storm off and right out the door.

Luc blinks. Fuck, this is going sideways. 

“I’m not making a joke, Zach.”

Zach doesn’t look convinced, and Luc struggles to her feet as well, the stool rocking and almost toppling over as she tries to follow before it’s too late. 

“You just—don’t even pretend,” Zach says wildly, staring right at Luc. At least she’s standing still.

Luc’s not even sure what that means, but Zach’s right there, and she’s desperate. She can’t even lie to herself that this is going in any way like she’d hoped or planned, but there’s only one more thing she can think to try.

Luc cups Zach’s face in her hands and leans in fast to kiss her.

Zach can’t misinterpret _that_.

At least, she hopes not. 

Zach is frighteningly still for a second. Her skin’s warm against Luc’s, but she’s not in the least responsive, nothing at all there for a chilling moment, viciously sharp in absence—and then she kisses back. 

Her lips are parted, her mouth hot, for a brief and incandescent second, and Luc has just enough time to think “ _Yes_ ,” before Zach tears herself away again.

She’s horrified to realize Zach’s shaking, her eyes wide, shocky.

“What was that,” Zach asks, her voice intense for all that she’s keeping it low, by some miracle not actually yelling at Luc like she probably deserves. “I just—excuse me? But you’re—I mean, they—” She trails off for a second, staring down at her feet, before looking right at Luc again, fury banked in her eyes. “What the _fuck_ , Luc?”

Luc has done a fucking miserable job of this, and she knows it. 

She’d think she should have planned better, but she’s not even sure how she could’ve done that. They’re so far off the beaten track, lost in the weeds, burn the maps and full speed ahead. On some level, she knows the only way out is through, but that’s a whole lot more than she’s ready to deal with at that exact second.

“I might have done this in the wrong order,” Luc admits, her voice barely audible over the ambient noise in the bar. And fuck, they’re still in _public_. 

Zach seems to realize the same thing, and maybe she’s even picked up on a little of what Luc can’t work out how to say, because she sighs and adds, “Okay, I don’t know what you even—but just hold that thought, I wanna go somewhere we can hear each other talk,” and she drags Luc bodily out of the bar.

Somewhat inevitably, they wind up at Zach’s apartment. 

Luc’s glad that Zach lives that close; she wasn’t in any way fit to drive, and at least it was a short enough walk that neither of them got too cold. Not that them both cooling off would be the worst thing in the world. 

Luc knows she should be using this time to figure out what to say and how to say it, but she keeps distracting herself, remembering how it felt to kiss Zach. Hoping she can do it again. 

It’s so quiet at Zach’s, in a way that’s familiar and not quite.

Zach’s just as neat as Seth is, but her place is less crowded. Which makes sense, Luc figures, because Zach lives alone now, and Seth’s been essentially living with the three of them now for the last few months. But just being in the same space as Zach without anything to distract either of them or anyone to try and play normal in front of is kind of awkward. They’re just staring at each other, and Zach’s all flushed and still furious, almost snarling and Luc’s—

Luc’s so into her, it’s honestly kind of debilitating. 

She’s meant to be good at this part, she never had trouble picking up before she was dating Ryan and Seth and Boone. But now she doesn’t even know where to start. 

Maybe saying even that much would help, Luc thinks wildly.

“So… you wanna explain what the fuck is going on here,” Zach asks, and she sounds almost normal, right up to the end when her voice shakes, just a little. It makes Luc’s heart crumple up in her chest. 

Luc shrugs, hating how helpless she feels now, with nothing but words. “You, uh. This is what you want, right? No strings and something fun, someone who’s into the same stuff as you?”

Zach pulls away from her reflexively, her jaw clenched tight. “That’s not fucking it, Pierre-Luc,” she says, and fuck, Luc’s definitely in trouble if Zach’s not using her nickname, the one the whole team adopted basically the second she made it up to join them. Luc’s been going by PL for her whole life, but something about the team calling her Luc instead has always felt a little special, new. Something just for them, for who she is with them. And Zach dropping it in favor of her full name hurts. 

“I’d make it good,” Luc argues. If Zach’s getting mad, then maybe Luc can distract her out of it, so long as Luc keeps talking. So long as Zach’s listening. 

It’s the best idea she’s got.

“Come the fuck on,” Zach says, biting her lip, and Luc can see the way her hands are clenched, knuckles going white as her nails dig into her palms. “You’re gonna brag about how easy it is for you? Why would I want to hear that? Like it’s not hard enough.”

Luc stares, jaw dropping. 

“You think I’m showing off?” 

Her own temper flares. 

It’s never exactly far from the surface, however much she likes to pretend otherwise, and Luc sees red the same way she does when she fucks up and lets someone on the opposing team push her buttons until she winds up taking a penalty out of sheer frustration.

She’s not used to her own teammates doing that. 

They chirp each other relentlessly, but it’s never really mean, and she didn’t expect that from Zach of all people. 

“Are you fucking serious, Z?”

It turns out Zach's mad enough to actually shove Luc back, to keep scowling at her, and Luc just kind of forgets to be mad or push back for a second, because _Zach_ hardly even gets that mad on the ice, not to look at anyway, and she doesn't know what to do with this. 

…should she be worried? Maybe she should call Seth, or Josh, or—

"You are such a dick," Zach snaps. "'Oh, my life is so hard, I get eaten out any time I blink an SOS at my girlfriends', it's not that fucking easy for the rest of us, okay?"

Luc opens her mouth to argue with the specifics of that, and then thinks better of it. 

There's no defense there that isn't going to cause offense, especially since it's true enough; Boone approaches oral sex like it's an Olympic sport and she's determined to make the qualifiers, Seth and Ryan are competitive and horny enough to keep up just as intensely, and if all Luc wanted to do was to just lie there she'd still get off more in a week than she had done in her entire juniors career.

"If you want that you need to ask for it," she says slowly, and Zach goes redder, her eyes bright, and Luc realizes with a rush of understanding that Zach is embarrassed, that she's this mad because she feels like she's doing something wrong, like there's something bad about asking for it. About wanting it. And that makes Luc want to beat up whoever let her feel that way because that's just—it's so wrong, Z shouldn't feel bad about anything she wants, not anything that's fun and safe. 

Luc forgets all about trying to suavely make a move on Zach and just reaches out and hugs her, hard. 

Maybe Zach needs some of Ryan's lectures about how heteronormativity is the fucking worst even if you're, like, really gay and don't even think about boning dudes on anything more than like a totally theoretical level. Luc can do a good impression of those, but it’s not quite the same as the way Ryan delivers it. 

"I don’t know, maybe I’m just bad at dating, or— Look. I just haven't found anyone who, you know. Is. Um. Who's even that into it," Zach says, stumbling over the words, and she's not even looking at Luc any more and this is so dumb, Luc just wants to make her feel better.

And, like, Zach's been pretty clear about what would make her feel better, and that's definitely in Luc's wheelhouse so, fuck it, eh?

Luc hugs Zach tighter and her voice is thick and a little rough—fuck, she's having feelings too, she didn't ask for that, but Zach's so good and Zach deserves to feel good and it kills Luc to see her struggling like this—and she just says, "Hey, well, we can fix that."

"You can?" Zach asks, doubtful.

Luc gets her hands on Zach's face, pushes her chin up with her thumbs and kisses her again, quick and light and fleeting. "If you want."

Zach flounders. "I—what? Luc? But you-? I didn’t think you really _meant it_ , back at the bar."

Luc kisses her again; Zach's mouth is sweet and she lets Luc slip her some tongue, even though Luc gets the feeling she's still a little dazed. But that's fine, she can catch up. Luc's got time to do this right.

"It's okay," she says. "If you want it, I've got you."

Zach's hands tighten on her, but she's not pushing her away, not even close to it.

"But you're, uh.” Zach makes a vague gesture with one hand, one that’s clearly meant to incorporate ‘sleeping with three of our teammates’.

“I mean, yeah,” Luc says, and she knows the way she’s grinning is goofy as hell, but she can’t seem to stop. This really might work, and god, Luc’s life is so good. “They signed off on it. It’s kind of an, um, open relationship? Now?”

There’s probably better words for it, or better ways to explain it, and maybe Luc should’ve done some serious Googling instead of fooling around in the living room with Boone the last time they had a day off, but she knows she can get Zach on board as long as she keeps listening. As long as she trusts Luc to tell her what she needs to know.

“Oh,” Zach says, and it’s adorably kind of high-pitched, and Luc thinks she can actually see the way that Zach’s brain is going all hamster-wheel for a second; the way she’s trying to assimilate the information fast enough to do something about it. God, Luc hopes she wants to do something about it. “Wait, so… just how open, exactly?”

Luc shrugs. They've talked about it enough by then that she's clear this is allowed, that it's okay to follow her instincts with Zach, and her instincts are screaming that this is the time, the opportunity they both need.

"It's open enough," she says, and when Zach looks like she's going to argue about it, Luc adds, "It's you, Z; we talked about it and no one had a problem."

Seth looked kind of like she was having the opposite of a problem, but that's some intermediate level shit that Luc is definitely postponing trying to figure out, and Zach doesn't need it complicating her life right now either. Zach needs to get laid and to chill out, and Luc is here for her on, like, all of those levels.

"If you're sure," she says, and Zach sounding grumpy and dubious is apparently hard-wired into Luc's system to somehow also be attractive, so Luc just ignores the tone and kisses her again. 

Zach kisses back this time, sighs and starts to relax into her, and fuck, it's so nice.

"So," Luc says, slipping a hand under the hem of Zach's shirt. This is kind of a step, going further than just making out, something that's harder to come back from, and if Zach's going to freak out about it then Luc needs to know before she does anything she can't take back. "Is this still okay?"

Her palm is flat on Zach's stomach and she can feel her muscles trembling a little, can trace out the definition of her abs. 

Luc's mouth goes dry and she wants to touch all over, wants to dive right in and take her fill of Zach. Zach is so hot and she's so tightly wound, so wrapped up and reserved and Luc wants to make her _scream_.

"It's fine," Zach says and Luc bites at her lip and says, "Zach," pointedly. 

There's a difference between Zach being all herself about things and a palpable lack of enthusiasm, and Luc absolutely does not want to mix those two up.

Zach shudders and her fingers bite into Luc's hips, like she's barely hanging on, and Luc grins fiercely. That's more like it.

"Fuck, fine," Zach says, and her voice is shaky too, and it's so satisfying, Luc could roll around in this feeling for weeks. "I like it, I want it, can we just—do this?"

"I got you," Luc says, and she skitters her fingertips over Zach's stomach, darting up over her ribs, smug about the way she can feel Zach inhale sharply under her touch.

She kisses Zach some more, till they've found a rhythm for it, a give-and-take that's easy to follow along with, a slow build that has Luc squirming just as much as Zach is. Luc's dying to get her hands on Zach properly and to have Zach touch her back. She feels like she's going to pop if she has to wait much longer, but the smart part of her brain knows it's more important to do it right than do it fast. She’s already come so close to messing this up. She can’t take that risk. And that smarter part of her brain is, so far, hanging onto the driver's seat. 

Just barely, but it is.

Zach gets braver then too, slides her own hands inside Luc's shirt, the hem getting caught up around her wrist. Her palm is warm where it spans the width of Luc’s shoulder blade, her other hand going to trace the outline of her bra, rough skin catching on the lace of the cup.

"Thank god," Luc says, now that they're getting that far, and she lets go of Zach just long enough to pull her t-shirt over her head, so she's just standing there in tight jeans and a lacy polka-dotted bra, and it's not ego to know she looks good; it's just honest, and the broken, needy noise that Zach makes as she looks is super satisfying.

"You're so—" Zach starts to say, and she interrupts herself to sigh, and then because she can't seem to hold out any longer, she gets both hands on Luc's tits anyway, and that feels good, too. 

Her hands are warm, and know what they're doing, teasing expertly, and Luc wants to purr like a cat.

She settles for kissing Zach some more, tugging at her shirt pointedly until Zach reluctantly lets go of her just long enough to strip it off too. Luc keeps her eyes open—she wants to see this, to enjoy all of it properly—and drinks it in; Zach, all lean long limbs, saved from being gangly by virtue of how much muscle she's packed onto her frame, her skin winter pale, maybe even whiter than Luc is, which is saying something…or maybe that's just the contrast with how dark her hair is.

Her bra is peach-colored, one of the thousand shades of 'nude' that doesn't manage to match anyone's skin tone, sensible-looking, and engineered within an inch of its life. Luc knows lingerie and this hits exactly on the bit of the venn diagram between 'extremely expensive' and 'deeply practical'. 

If Luc had been picking, she'd have guessed Zach would be one of those girls who wears a sports bra whenever she wears anything, but Luc's also observant enough to be aware that Zach's got enough going on in that department to warrant the extra support. She takes all of that in in a rush, though; more concerned with how fast she can get the bra off Zach than she is with what it looks like, and what Luc really wants to see is hidden under it, anyway.

Luc's not wrong about the level of structural engineering involved. She doesn't need to peek over Zach's shoulder to see the martial row of hooks fastening it; at least four, if she's counting right with her fingertips as her hands go to Zach's back to start unhooking it.

"Sorry, I can—" Zach starts to say, reaching back like Luc needs her help, and come on, she's not new at this.

"I've got it," Luc says with a grin, and in a couple of swift movements she has, giggling a little at the look on Zach's face. "I'm not an amateur," she goes on, and when Zach rolls her eyes at her Luc just grins, appreciating the fact that she's got Zach back on a footing they're both more comfortable with now: being a competitive asshole about it. 

And that's not even counting the fact that she now has a whole new area to explore.

"Hello," Luc says appreciatively, helping tug the straps down over Zach's arms, peeling the bra off and dropping it onto the floor beside them without a second thought. That's no way to treat it, and normally Luc would be at least a little more careful, but it feels like Zach needs something else more, like Zach needs Luc to make it clear how much she wants this, how much it means, and how there's no way she's going to wait a second longer than she has to. 

And god, Zach's tits are amazing.

"This isn’t fair," Zach says, squirming a little under Luc's eyes, and isn't that interesting. "Let me get you naked too, you dick."

"Oh, is that all you want?" Luc asks, and it takes her about three seconds to shrug out of her own bra before pressing right up against Zach again. It feels nice, skin-on-skin, and Luc's aware enough of the picture they make to know how good they must look together; Zach's curves pressed up against hers, and it thrums through her, makes her ache and sweat and want all the more.

"God," Zach says, and she gets her hands on Luc's breasts again, touching her so delicately, enough that Luc wants to remind her that she's tough, she's a hockey player too and neither of them is going to break. "You're so hot, Luc," Zach adds, and Luc likes hearing that—who wouldn't?—but the whole point of this exercise is to stop _Zach_ from thinking so much, and step one in that process involves making sure this is about Zach and not Luc, thank you very much.

Zach's skin is softer than Luc was expecting, like she actually follows through on systematically moisturizing all over. There are red marks on her sides under her arms and under her breasts where her underwire was digging in, where she'd been sweating and moving, and Luc traces those with one finger, rubs over them the way that Boone likes her to, and Zach shivers against her.

"You look so good," Luc says, letting her voice drop, letting the tone of it curl down and feeling Zach shiver against her. "I just wanna—" and she cups Zach's breasts in her hands, kisses down the side of her neck, over the top of her chest.

Zach makes a tiny breathy noise, one that Luc would have missed if it was any less quiet in there, but it's enough of a clue, enough to tell her she's making the right moves so far. 

"Can we move this to a bed?" Luc asks, lifting her head up to catch Zach's eyes, giving her just a little bit of an eyelash flutter. If she puts too much sauce on it then Zach will laugh, or think she's making fun, but she's judged it okay if the way that Zach shivers against her and just nods is any indication.

“This way,” Zach says, pulling away reluctantly, heading towards her bedroom. 

Luc reaches out to catch her hand, curls her fingers around Zach’s wrist and lets Zach lead her down the hall and inside her room. 

It’s as tidy as Luc would’ve imagined; the bed made, dark cotton sheets that look warm and inviting, the curtains open, late afternoon light spilling in from outside. 

If Zach leaves much of anything out Luc can’t see it; there’s no careless pile of half-clean shirts or the accumulation of anything left in her pockets at the end of the day; just a lamp on the bedside table, a phone charger, anti-inflammatory cream and a clean water glass.

Luc’s tempted, for a second, to think of it like a magazine layout: the perfectly organized, neatly styled room that says nothing except maybe a whisper of money, but when she looks for a moment longer, it’s just Zach all over. 

Zach in the faintest crease on the pillow, where she’d rest her head. In the scrap of maize and blue just peeking out from under it, that Luc doesn’t even need to be American to pick as an old UMich shirt, probably one Zach’s been sleeping in. In the carefully framed pictures on the dresser; Zach and Dylan Larkin, as kids and again as teenagers, arms slung easily around each other’s shoulders, grinning and gap-toothed. Zach with Seth and Ryan and Boone and Dalton Prout at the Kelpies Halloween party, the year before Luc made the team, beaming at the camera.

Zach.

Zach right there, in arms reach and so infinitely touchable at last. 

Zach walks over to the bed, pauses for a second, and then shoves her jeans down over her hips, stepping out of them, leaving her wearing underwear and nothing else. 

Luc’s a professional athlete and gets medical checks every other day, practically, and she _still_ thinks she's going to have a heart attack for a second. 

"Fuck," Luc says under her breath, and then she scrambles to follow, shrugging out of the remainder of her own clothing in a hurry. She pauses for a second with her hands at her hips and then thinks, fuck it, it's not like they're going anywhere else with this, and pushes her underwear down and off as well. 

"Oh, hello," Zach says appreciatively from the bed, and she's scooting back, making space for Luc to join her, and Luc can feel the weight of her eyes, goes hot all over with it. 

She shivers, as Zach's eyes stay glued to her, darting down her body and then back up to her face, like Zach isn't sure where to look first—although she doesn't have any shame at all in lingering where Luc most wants her to touch. 

Luc tries and fails to bite back the smug grin at that. 

It's more like Zach isn't sure she'll have enough time to look as much as she wants. And Luc could tell her not to worry about that, Luc'll make sure they both have as much time as they need.

"Hi," Luc says softly, and she crawls over to Zach, lies down next to her, reaching out to run one hand along Zach's side gently, fingertips dragging over hip and waist and ribcage, pushing forward just enough to stroke over the side of her breast. 

Zach inhales sharply, moving under her hands. 

Luc ducks her head again to brush kisses over Zach's lips, over her cheek, and down the side of her neck. It's not like her destination isn't obvious, but Zach still sighs long and loud when Luc's mouth finally closes around her breast and she flicks her tongue over the tip.

Zach's melting under her and making happy noises, which is as good an invitation as Luc needs to really indulge herself. Zach's breasts fill her hands, and Zach moans so gratifyingly when Luc uses her mouth and then, carefully, just a touch of teeth.

"Okay?" she murmurs, backing up just enough to make eye contact with Zach. If they’re doing this, then Luc’s going to take her time and make it worth their while.

"Uh, yeah," Zach says, stumbling over her words. "Can I, uh—?" 

Zach reaches out, cups the side of Luc's jaw with one hand and lets her fingertips brush under and behind Luc's ear, pushing into her hair. 

Luc leans into it—she loves head massages, or people fussing with her hair, running their fingers through it, and even though she tries to play it cool when they're around other people, Zach's observant enough that she must’ve seen by then just how often Seth or Ryan play with her hair.

"Oh, good," Zach says, and the short nails that Luc's seen her bite at whenever she's stressed out scratch lightly over Luc's scalp and she thinks she just might turn into goo herself. "Hey, don't you stop," she adds, and Luc swallows a giggle—Zach is so goal oriented!—and gets her mouth right back on Zach. 

Zach keeps up the motion, running her nails over the back of Luc's head for a moment and then trailing her fingers down through loose curls, steady and repetitive. 

It's easy for Luc to echo the motion, to pick up her rhythm, mouthing over Zach’s skin, until she realizes that Zach is squirming against her and panting, and all the arousal that Luc has been pushing down rises up to overwhelm her. She can feel how wet her thighs are, rubbing together, her clit throbbing and aching to be touched. 

Luc makes herself get brave enough to make the next move all by herself; she lets her hand venture further down from Zach's gorgeous tits to run over her hip and down the back of her thigh.

Zach jolts against her and Luc holds her breath, but Zach just grumbles, "Come on, touch me already then, jeez," and her knee bumps against Luc as she slings her calf over Luc's, locking them together, opening herself up for Luc to reach between her legs.

"What do you like—?" Luc starts to ask, since it would've been borderline creepy to pay too much attention to shit Zach's said when they've been out drinking as a team and things have gotten to an over-sharing point. It would've been, and yet there's a few snippets of TMI that have been playing through Luc's head ever since she'd heard them, and jokes on her; now she can do something about that, too. 

It's always important to have good scouting reports, Luc thinks, and just cups her hand over Zach's cunt, feeling the way she radiates heat, the slickness under her palm and the soft thin skin under her fingertips, as her fingers slide back and down to nudge at Zach’s rim.

Zach makes a choking noise and jolts against her, breathing hard.

"Are you gonna—?" she asks, slightly wild around the eyes, and Luc smirks some more and says, "Maybe?"

"Luc," Zach complains, "I—didn't you say this was about not leaving me hanging?"

"I'll get you there," Luc protests, her pride stung just enough to make her blurt that out in a hurry.

The way Zach's eyes light up in triumph gives away the fact she might've been showing her own cards too early. But whatever, Luc thinks, throwing caution to the winds. It isn't like they won't both enjoy whatever ends up happening, even if Luc doesn't exactly stick to the plan she'd made originally. 

So sue her, she’s good at improvising. And it doesn’t take a genius to read the play that’s right in front of her. 

"I'm waiting," Zach says, arguably overplaying the tragic 'never been fucked exactly right' expression, and it should have been funny, Luc should have wanted to giggle and tease but get her off anyway, and despite knowing all of that she finds herself giving in entirely anyway. 

"Sorry, princess," Luc says, and lets Zach grind against the heel of her hand. “Or—princess _warrior_ , wasn’t it?”

"You fucking—" Zach gasps, her hips pushing into the touch, "Fuck, will no one ever let that one go?"

"Nope," Luc says cheerfully.

"You weren't even here then," Zach complains, and Luc twists her wrist a little and grins as Zach moans. 

"I pay attention," she says, and kisses Zach again quick.

Zach lets her teeth dig into Luc's lower lip, lets their tongues tangle as they breathe against each other, fast and ragged.

"No one on this team," Zach mutters unsteadily, her fingers biting into Luc's shoulders, holding her close, "lets anything _go_."

"We're persistent," Luc says, squirming against her. "That's gonna work out pretty good for you in a minute."

"Oh yeah?" Zach says.

"We're also very coachable," Luc says, leaning back, and Zach lets go, lets her wriggle away.

Luc keeps her fingertips rubbing lightly over Zach, dancing figure eights over slick skin. She encourages Zach to roll onto her back, sinking into the mattress as Luc moves down, lets her other hand slide down to cup Zach’s hip, shifting her weight until she’s half off the bed, leaning in close to breathe hot over Zach's skin.

She licks her lips, and looks up just long enough to catch the way that Zach's eyes widen, and grins. 

It’s fun, doing this; making Zach gasp and moan, touching her. That would've been good enough motivation just by itself, making out and fooling around, but Luc has made some big promises and she’s looking forward to fulfilling them.

"Here goes," Luc says softly, and Zach opens her mouth to say something—probably to complain about how long Luc’s making her wait, Luc’s under no misconceptions there; Zach's face, when you know her well enough, tells you everything—and so Luc buries her face between Zach's legs.

"Oh fuck," Zach says, startled into speaking more loudly than she'd probably intended to. " _Fuck_ , yes, Luc, that's—"

Luc grins and licks into her.

Zach's words dissolve into breathy gasps, and Luc can just see in her peripheral vision where her hands are twisted into the sheets by her hips, shaking and clenching in time with the way Luc’s tongue is stroking over her skin.

Luc takes her time, determined to show Zach that she can give her everything she's promised. 

She drags her tongue back up from Zach's cunt to her clit, traces soft spirals around it without quite touching, and lets her hands slide higher up Zach's thighs, feeling her whole body tremble.

It takes a little time and care for Luc to rearrange herself without giving Zach a chance to cool down or catch her breath. She doesn't want Zach to start over-thinking any of this, and the easiest way to accomplish that is to keep touching her, keep her wound up and on the edge. 

Luc's fingers push up against the curve where Zach’s ass meets her thighs, thumbs sliding easily into the crease of her groin and over hot skin. She parts Zach's folds delicately, thumbnails rasping over hair, slipping on her skin, and holds her open so Luc can bury her face even deeper. Zach jerks under her, knees digging into Luc's sides as Luc's tongue strokes up and down, bringing her higher. Luc swallows hard, over and over again, lapping at Zach like she can't get enough, drifting into a rhythm that makes her whole body throb sympathetically. 

It isn't enough, even that much, and Luc flexes, lifts; tilts Zach's pelvis up closer to her face, her hands steady on Zach’s ass to hold her in place a few scant inches above the mattress while Luc goes to town.

"Fuck, that's—you—" Zach gasps, and Luc wants to look up, wants to see what her face is doing, to see her hair all messed up from thrashing around and sweating, but she can only do one thing at a time, and right then Luc is entirely focused on getting Zach off.

Sensing that Zach’s starting to lose the reserve she wears so tightly all the time, Luc just keeps licking. The tip of her tongue finally strokes over Zach’s clit, root to tip, over and over again until Zach starts making choked noises that make Luc wish she'd thought ahead enough to get herself something to rub off on. She has to be as wet as Zach is, just from doing this, from being able to see and smell and touch her, and god, Luc hadn't exactly thought she'd gotten complacent since she'd started regularly banging several other women at the same time, but it turns out it kind of sucks not to have someone else with a hand free when you were getting close. 

Of course, if she and Zach had gotten their shit together a little better in the first place then they probably could have worked something out. 

But this wasn’t exactly in the original plan, Luc reminds herself, feeling Zach shiver under her as Luc's tongue pushes inside her before she lets herself move up again, her open mouth pressed tight to Zach's pussy, sucking hard around her clit. This is Luc improvising, and she’s going to do her best to do that to a gold standard. 

Zach's pitch gets higher and she’s shaking hard, tension drawing her tight all over, and god, if Luc had had her girls here then someone could've been touching her breasts as well, could be holding her up, and Zach'd have a few options for things to do with her mouth that weren't just panting. 

But at the same time, Luc’s been having two-person sex for years now, she’s good at it, she can adjust her expectations back to that system. 

It’s just, you know. An adjustment. 

Although the way Zach’s reacting to her reminds Luc of something, some _one_ , and she keeps stroking the underside of Zach's clit with her tongue, over and over, until she feels like Zach is so tense the right or wrong move is going to make her shatter. It feels like playing with fire, like it’s risky, but it also feels _right_ and Zach’s making the most amazing noises as Luc drives her out of her mind.

"Can you, uh, I want your fingers too," Zach manages to bite out, and Luc says, "Oh!" and shifts around to get a hand free—she’s pretty sure Zach is helping keep her hips tilted up like that, it isn't too hard to just leave one hand on Zach's ass to direct her, and Luc carefully slips two fingers into Zach's body and feels her clench down hard.

"Nice," Luc mumbles, and goes to lick lazy circles around Zach's clit some more.

She keeps that up for a while, then switches to fingering Zach with slow, steady thrusts while keeping up the pressure on her clit, and that’s when the association clicks at last. It’s Ryan that Zach’s been pushing to the front of her mind. That’s what she’s been half-recognizing, the pattern that wouldn’t come clear till then: Zach’s acting the same way Ryan does when she wants something, when she needs more to get there, but Luc knows once she gets that far she's going to come until they stop touching her. 

And fuck, she wants to see if Zach will do that too.

Luc lets Zach's hips lower slowly back down to the mattress, figuring she needs more than one hand for what she has planned. Zach plants her feet on the mattress either side of her, thighs splayed wide, giving Luc as much room as she could want, and god, that trust is addictive. 

Luc squirms around to get herself comfortable again and keeps fucking Zach with her fingers, curling them up inside her and stroking to find the spot that’ll make her go even wilder. She keeps her mouth open, breathing hot over Zach's skin, licking down every other second, tongue dragging over slick skin and coarse hair. Zach’s moving underneath her, breath coming in little gasps, and Luc inhales sharply as Zach gets a hand free and immediately slides it back into her hair.

She doesn't pull, or tangle her fingers in there—not that Luc would've minded, really—and she doesn't push hard, nothing rude about it, but there’s a definite pressure, encouraging Luc to get her head back down, properly, and okay, Luc’s happy to take that hint.

Luc's tongue runs down the slick center of her, between the lips of her pussy and back up to her clit, and when Zach gives a desperate little jerk when Luc touches her there she figures that’s more than enough teasing. 

Luc can feel Zach all over her face by then, smeared around her mouth, over her cheeks, her nose buried right in there till Zach’s all she can see and smell and feel. She traces out the tiny differences of Zach's body, runs the tip of her tongue around her clit, over the hood, feels out just how much of it she can get to, even as Zach shudders hard and makes low, almost pained noises. 

Luc draws back just long enough to gulp in some air, rubbing her palm soothingly up and down the dip of Zach's waist, forearm hooked under Zach's thigh to give them both some stability. 

And that gives her another idea. 

Luc is used to going with the flow, following her intuition. She ducks her head back down—feels Zach tense in expectation--and keeps going, bracing the shoulder that Zach already has one long leg slung over. She licks around Zach's cunt, resists the temptation to push her tongue inside again, keeps going down until her tongue’s teasing over Zach's rim instead, pushing wetly at the tightly furled muscle and sensitive skin.

Zach freezes, swallows a noise that wasn't quite a protest, just inarticulate shock, and Luc licks over her again.

"Fuck," Zach says, voice loud and cracking, and oh, yeah, she’s into it. 

If Luc had a third hand she'd—okay, well, she'd probably figure out a way to fuck Zach with that too, but she'd stop to high-five herself first. 

And that reminds her; she gets her thumb on Zach's clit and strokes gently, up and over, down and around, and Zach's voice goes up an octave, and she shakes under Luc's hands and mouth, trembling suspended between them. Luc keeps going, glorying in the way Zach bucks up into the pressure and rocks down to get more of the soft, wet heat of her mouth, until Zach tugs desperately at her hair and hisses, "Luc, I'm gonna—"

Luc keeps going, gets her all the way there; she wants Zach to feel good and it’s a matter of pride, too, to be good enough for her. To give her what she wants, what she'd asked for. What she hadn’t even been able to find the words to ask for, and needed all the same.

"Holy fuck," Zach says, when Luc finally crawls back up the bed to sack out beside her. She sounds faintly stunned, and she’s almost making a facial expression.

Luc fist-pumps.

"Oh my god," Zach says, immediately going stone-faced again. "That's—did you just—?"

"Fuck off," Luc says cheerfully, "You came so hard, I'm the best, let me have this."

"Fuck my life," Zach replies, rolling her eyes, but there's enough of a glimmer of humor in her face that Luc doesn't take it personally at all.

"Just did," she says smugly, and she probably does deserve it when Zach groans in response and shoves her hard enough that she falls back onto her ass, almost tumbling off the mattress beside her. 

"You can't tell me that wasn't good," Luc says, because she's never yet found a problem she can't talk her way into or out of, and sometimes both at the same time. 

Zach sighs again, but Luc can tell she's playing it up. 

She'd go along with this tease for longer—it's fun to get Zach going, and when you rev her up enough she'll give as good as she gets, Luc's seen her and Seth when they get all competitive—but no one's touched her in ages, and this is a real flaw in that whole 'only two people in the bed' thing.

"So, Zach," Luc says, glancing up through fluttering eyelashes, knowing exactly how she looks. 

Boone's whispered in her ear often enough before just how good she looks when she's turned on and this desperate for it, all big eyes and flushed cheeks, shiny lips that she can lick gratuitously, tasting Zach again. Her hair is tumbling wildly around her shoulders—and, okay, it's going to be much too hot for that in about ten more minutes, but till then she'll put up with it for the effect.

Boone is definitely not the only one who's weak for this look, Luc notes, with honey-slow delight. 

Zach's just staring at her, eyes darting from top to toes, lingering on her lips, her collarbones, the curve of her breasts and all the way down. Luc shivers like Zach's brushing her with more than just her gaze, and wishes she'd get onto actually _touching_ again already. 

Zach tries to play it cool, but Luc can see it wearing away at her, can see need and desire crumbling all her careful reserve, and god, this is even better than Luc had thought it could be. 

"So," Zach says, not breaking eye contact with her. "What do _you_ like, Luc?"

Luc puts on her best angelic expression. "Try it and find out?"

"No hints, huh?" Zach says, and it'd be easier to believe she meant that in as dour a tone as she'd said it if Luc couldn't see her eyes sparkling, couldn't see the way she was still breathing too fast, covered in Luc's marks and still flushed all over from Luc's hands and mouth. 

Zach was feeling it a lot more than she wanted to give away. 

Zach leans in, looming over her.

"Getting warmer?" Luc says, unable to resist the joke. 

"You're just gonna keep—" Zach starts to say and then shakes her head. "Of course you are. How do the others even get a word in?" Zach takes any sting out of that comment by sweeping her fingertips in a slow arc over Luc's collarbones, shoulder to shoulder, watching the way Luc's skin goes pink and then white as her blunt nails drag over it. 

Luc inhales sharply, shudders under her hands.

It makes her even less tactful than she'd normally be, this early on in a—is it even a hookup? 

Luc adds 'figuring out what this even is' to her to do list for after. 

"I mean, you could put something in my mouth," Luc replies with a shrug, and tucks away for herself the memory of the momentary flash of heat that arcs across Zach's face, the open want. Zach was tempted, in every sense, and Luc wants to race around in triumphant circles and yell it to the world. 

"Maybe later," Zach says, the expression smoothed away again already, sinking back into her everyday calm, the almost-neutral smirk that she wears like armor. "Let's do this first," she adds, and crawls right on top of Luc, hovering in place for a moment before her weight settles over Luc's hips, presses her into the mattress. 

Luc grins up at her, enjoying the view. 

Zach on the ice is impressive; smooth-skating, deceptively fast, offensively brilliant. Zach perched above her on her hands and knees—warm, naked and laser-focused on Luc—is fucking _magnificent_.

And Luc doesn't want to mess this up, not now, not when it's going so much better than she was worried it could do, but she's twenty years old and about to jump out of her own skin at how turned on she is, and Zach is right there. 

Luc decides not to second-guess herself, and goes with impulse again.

Zach's tits are more than a handful, and Luc cups them, lets them spill over into her palms, delighted to have permission to touch as much as she wants. 

She smooths her hands down over Zach's ribs and then back up, her fingers fanning out over Zach's skin, watching the way it goes pink when she lets her fingertips dig in just a little. Her skin is so smooth that Luc thinks for a wild second that it’s like stroking a cat, warm and soft under her hands, static electricity building between them. Zach's so pale, a stark contrast against the dark shock of hair between her legs and under her arms. Zach’s summer farmer's tan has long faded, and now that she's caught her breath, the blushes are dying down too. She's all long pale limbs and curves and muscle, and from this angle her breasts are even more spectacular than they'd looked on the rare occasions someone could talk her into a dress. 

Luc's eyes and hands trace the pale blue thread of veins that branch over her collarbone and right down to her nipples, and she fancies that she can see the way Zach's pulse leaps as she does that. She can definitely feel it. Zach hisses involuntarily when Luc teases her thumb over the tight-furled peak, leans into the touch, and groans low and throaty when Luc ghosts her thumbnail right over the tip, rubbing back and forth. 

"Thought I was meant to be getting you off," Zach says, and if Luc didn't know her this well she'd think Zach was pissed, instead of a little rueful, a little more embarrassed. 

Zach's so responsive that Luc can't catch her own breath, delighted by the endless possibilities, and she wants to cross her legs, does clench her thighs together; something, anything to relieve the heat building inside her. 

Zach's observant too, and she doesn't miss that, not even when Luc can't seem to keep her hands off her in turn. 

"Oh, don’t worry, this is doing it for me," Luc assures her, and Zach does laugh this time, her eyes squeezing closed, wrinkles at the corner of them as she ducks her head against Luc's shoulder, her weight settling more evenly over Luc. 

Luc can feel every breath Zach's taking, ragged and fast, pressing against her, and feels more than a touch light-headed in sympathy.

"Stop _distracting_ me," Zach says, only a breath of real censure in it. "I want—Luc, I can see the way you're squirming, let me touch you already."

"I'm not stopping you," Luc argues, and gives the lie to that immediately as she tilts her chin up to kiss Zach again, lips brushing over hers, tongue slipping into her mouth.

Zach makes a choked sound, sinking deeper into the kiss, tasting herself, and Luc feels so smug that she could just about burst with it.

And then Zach gasps as Luc's hands tighten what must be painfully on tender skin, her reflexive response to the shot of pure heat that lances through her as Zach's hand finds its way between her legs and goes unerringly right to her clit, sensation jolting across raw nerves.

Their words get tangled together as they both blurt out apologies at the same time, sheepish and laughing through it.

"I didn't mean—" Luc starts to say, knowing she'd startled Zach even if she was fairly sure that Zach had also liked it, and "Oh god, sorry, I did say, but you—" Zach says and then they look at each other and laugh, breathless, not bothering to finish either sentence.

"I'm not saying we're bad at this," Zach says, "But like, we could be doing better."

"Hey, I got you off just fine," Luc protests. 

Zach can't argue with that so she doesn't even try, just grumbles something wordless into Luc's mouth and kisses her again. She's pushier this time, greedy, and Luc can feel her own control starting to slip at last.

Zach's got one hand wrapped around Luc's biceps, holding herself in place with the combination of that one point to brace off of, clenched abdominals and more stubbornness than is probably good for her. She's still got her free hand between them, fingers exploring slow and easy, delving into every soft quiet place Luc's ever had. 

Luc can feel herself starting to melt, letting Zach push her down into the mattress, her bones going to taffy, salt-water taste on her lips. 

She's so wet, been turned on enough that it almost hurts, how badly she wants to be touched, and Zach's obliging. Luc's heels skid on the sheets, the rough skin catching against the cotton and rasping, as she tries to push up against Zach's hand, tries to wrap her legs around Zach in mute appeal.

It doesn't take any effort at all for Zach to slip a finger inside her, curving up and in, and Luc can't help picturing what she can't see. 

She's watched Zach's hands enough to know exactly what they look like; clever sensitive fingers, sensibly short nails, blunt where they drag over skin and tug at hair. She can feel every tiny motion Zach's making like it’s ten times bigger, senses heightened, edged with desperation. 

"Mmm?" Zach hums against her mouth, the tip of her tongue pushing against the corner of Luc's lips, and she can translate that question easily enough too. 

Zach doesn't need to be tapping her stick on the ice for Luc to know she's ready to take her shot.

"Yeah, c'mon," Luc says, mumbling the words into Zach's mouth. 

Zach doesn't ask her to repeat herself, thank god; she just takes the permission Luc's been trying to give her all day, and lets herself up the ante. She adds a second finger, and when Luc groans appreciatively, a third, fucking her slow and steady and absolutely torturous. She hasn't touched her clit again since that very first time, and Luc can hardly breathe, feels swollen all over, like her pulse is roaring in her ears and buzzing in her chest and throbbing in her cunt, a symphony of desperation. Zach's heavy on top of her, those gorgeous tits right at eye level, fingering her like it's the only thing she's ever wanted to do. 

Luc's pretty sure she's going to self-combust in a second. 

Zach's fingers are rubbing inside her and finally she lets her thumb push up against Luc's clit as well. 

Luc jumps. 

It's almost too much; the steady pressure, Zach playing her like she's got all the cheat codes to what drives Luc crazy, not giving her anywhere to hide.

It seems like it's almost too easy, and Luc can't believe that she's going to come this fast, but Zach's good, takes direction almost scarily well, and Luc clutches at her and moans shamelessly. She feels like she's going to shake apart, melting under Zach, and if Zach fucks women like this, then Luc has no fucking idea why she's had any trouble getting what she needs in return. 

If Luc has anything to say about it, she's coming back for seconds. And thirds. Whenever she regains the ability to walk or talk, anyhow. 

"Fuck," Luc says, collapsing back onto the mattress as Zach finally rolls off her, folds her legs tailor-style and just sits there, watching Luc like she's must-see TV. 

Luc's pretty sure she looks like an absolute disaster, if anything. Her hair's all sweaty and tangled everywhere, she's blushing fiercely, still panting, so wet she thinks it has to be dripping down her thighs, still shaking with how hard Zach'd gotten her off. 

Zach's just sitting there and waiting for her brain to turn back on, apparently, and Luc hopes she doesn't mind waiting a moment longer, because she's still trying to figure out how all of this got on top of her.

This was meant to be all about Zach; making Zach feel good, being a good friend, getting her what she needed. It wasn't meant to be about Zach turning the tables and blowing Luc's mind as well. 

It's not like Luc doesn't have incredibly good sex on the reg; that's kind of their whole deal, when she’s with Ryan and Boone and Seth. But this was so much more than she was anticipating, and if the vaguely pole-axed look on Zach's face is any indication, she's not the only one thinking that. 

Luc considers sitting up and doing literally anything, but she's not sure she's actually got it together again enough to do that yet, so she just lies there and keeps watching Zach. 

Zach's fun to look at, and Luc's not sure how she's ever going to make herself forget that now. 

"Oh, so that's what it takes, huh?" Zach says, with a tiny sliver of a grin, something that's almost directed more to herself than Luc.

Luc raises an eyebrow. 

"You look so smug right now," Zach says, which isn't quite an explanation.

Luc clears her throat. "I had fun, you did too, mission accomplished?" She snorts, doesn't quite manage to choke back the giggle at how that sounds. 

Zach has a go at the eyebrow raise thing herself, and manages to look slightly threatening, even. Good for her, Luc thinks, still riding the flood of endorphins and feeling cheerful about basically everything. 

"You're, uh, very coachable," Luc explains. "Went out there, gave it a hundred percent—"

"Checked well, sure," Zach finishes, with a fleeting grin of her own. "Does getting off always make you this goofy?"

Luc shrugs, and the way she can see Zach's eyes dip to check her out again as she does is definitely adding to her smugness quotient. No one can say Luc doesn’t have _great_ ideas.

"Only one way to find out," she says, without quite thinking it through—it's too easy to fall into the rhythm of chirping back and forth, of teasing, even when they're both naked and this isn't a normal locker room conversation by any stretch of the imagination. 

Zach swallows hard and doesn't seem to have any quick answer for that. Which, Luc'll take that. At least she's gotten Zach out of her own head for a while, whether it sticks or not. It'll suck if Zach freaks out now, but Luc knew the risks when she'd started this, so she can't exactly complain about it after the fact. 

"Did you, uh—" Zach flounders a little, and Luc just watches her. She's not sure what Zach's even trying to ask, so she'll wait rather than jump to conclusions. 

Luc does too have patience sometimes, suck it, Ryan. 

Zach’s silent a moment longer, and Luc gives her an encouraging smile, in case that helps, but Zach just sighs, closes her eyes for a second—Luc would bet actual money that Zach's counting to ten in her head—and then says, still without looking directly at Luc, "Did you have plans? Tonight? Should I, uh. Let you go?"

Luc sits up fast, and more or less hurls herself at Zach. "No. _No_. No plans, don't—I mean. Please just come lie down again, my brain is not working yet and I don't want to mess this up."

"There doesn't have to be something to mess up," Zach says carefully, but she lets Luc tug her back down until they're both lying flat, heads together on the same pillow, tangled close together. It's nice. It'd be better than nice, if Luc couldn't feel how all the tension she'd fucked out of Zach had come flooding back in again the second she thought she had to let Luc clear out. 

As if Luc would leave her before she has to.

"That ship has sailed," Luc says firmly, and hopes she's got the idiom the right way around this time. 

At least Ryan can mostly understand her when she slips back in French. Maybe Ryan can teach Zach. And that's closer to an idea that even Luc isn't ready to fully let herself admit to having yet than she can bring herself to even acknowledge, so she pushes that aside, goes back to running her hand slow and steady down Zach's side, fingertips curling around to trace out the knobs of her spine, the soft curve of her hip. 

"So you're saying you'd do this again," Zach says, value-neutral again, but Luc's getting better at reading her, and faster too, and she nudges her elbow against Zach's ribs and makes a buzzer sound, her best imitation of one of those 'you fucked up' bits from game shows or the more annoying types of podcast. Not that Luc has some grudges, or anything. 

"Yeah, I would," she says, not looking away from Zach. "So long as you want to. Yeah."

"I'm not dumb enough to say no," Zach jokes, and Luc bites her lip, feeling hurt for a fraction of a second. It's not Zach's fault, Luc knows she didn't mean it like that. But it stings.

"Hey now," Luc says, making herself joke right back. "Don't pretend like you're not up for a repeat performance some day. But right now it is definitely nap time."

"Oh, well, if it's _nap time_ ," Zach agrees, and tucks herself against Luc's side as they stretch out on the bed, wriggling under the covers now that neither of them is quite so over-heated. 

"You want me to set an alarm?" Luc asks, sleepiness tugging at her ability to focus already, cocooned in warm lazy satisfaction. Getting off always makes her sleep better, and that's about all the self-reflection she feels like indulging in right then and there.

"I'll wake up," Zach promises, and then her fingers brush over Luc's cheek, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear. "I'll wake you up, you're a wake up on-the-hour person, right?"

Luc smiles, relieved, and cuddles closer to Zach, who is—and Luc's not sure how much of this she can take for granted—apparently happy to sleep that way too. "That's perfect," she says. "Sleep now?"

She thinks Zach's fingertip brushes over her lower lip then, definitely feels the soft "Yeah," that Zach breathes out right next to her ear, but Luc's already falling asleep and everything's vague and fuzzy around the edges so maybe that was just what she wanted to believe.

* * *

Waking up naked and plastered against someone who isn't Ryan, Seth or Boone is kind of a new experience for Luc. 

She's done the first option a lot by that point, of course, but before them… Luc never stayed. That was her thing, her compromise, her deal with herself: she wouldn't stay, so she didn't have to worry about what it meant, or what it didn't.

And Zach is a very attractive spanner tumbling right into the middle of those works. 

Despite the fact that Luc had told herself she knew what she was getting into—despite the fact the other three had all talked it out with her and said it was fine anyway—it gives Luc butterflies, all the nerves and spiraling what-ifs that have co-starred in her less-than-stellar moments over the years landing right on her head again and yelling for attention.

Luc takes her hand off Zach's side—warm and smooth and fitting so nicely under her palm—and tries to remember some of the breathing exercises the trainers back in the Q had taught them.

It's possible she didn't think this through quite as much as she'd been telling herself she had. 

"Whoa, Luc, breathe," Zach mumbles, patting her ribcage clumsily, like that's going to help. 

Zach is not good at this, Luc thinks ruefully, and that part is not at all news. 

Luc hadn't needed to know Zach for longer than half a season to have guessed at that one, thanks. Zach means well but is so busy hiding her thoughts and feelings that she forgets sometimes how to deal with the people who don't. Which is fine, Luc can roll with that, it's just—

It's just a little awkward, when she's trying to talk herself down from panicky second thoughts much too late after the fact about just what exactly she's doing with her life. 

But Luc said she could do this and that means she has to, she's determined not to mess this up, for any of them, let alone not just for herself, and that means holding her breath until it makes her quake, tearing at her chest, and she exhales slowly and finds steady ground.

"I'm fine," she says, and leans over to kiss Zach's cheek, just in case she's freaked out too and hiding it. 

Zach's found her usual composure a lot more readily than Luc has, or maybe she just freaked out first thing when she woke up and was all done by the time Luc joined her. Or maybe Zach is being less of a drama queen about all of this, Luc thinks, with her third thought, and has to muffle a giggle.

"Do you want me to make food, or do we need to go out?" Zach asks, a moment later, and Luc blinks. She can't fault Zach's priorities, honestly; normally Luc would be very obviously, easily distracted by the possibility of jumping Zach's bones a second time, but she's starving. 

"Out," Luc says after a moment's thought. Maybe Seth or Boone could throw together a decent meal from what's lurking in Zach’s cupboards, but she definitely can't, and she doesn’t want to pressure Zach to try right then and there. Plus, if they go out Luc can at least get coffee, which Zach definitely does not have. And the outside world definitely has both fries and protein, and Luc has worked up a healthy appetite. 

"Cool," Zach says, and rolls out of bed and starts getting dressed again. 

Luc watches as she covers up everywhere Luc had had her hands and mouth earlier, slipping back into her clothes and her usual cool self-possession with about equal speed, before leaning against the wall and raising an ironic eyebrow at Luc's lack of momentum.

"Am I getting dinner by myself?" Zach asks, and Luc sighs dramatically and crawls out of bed to get dressed in turn.

"I'm still waking up," she complains, and Zach doesn't say anything, just grins.

But Luc can see that Zach’s watching her get dressed with the same barely leashed appreciation that she'd helped her undress with, so Luc figures that this one is, on balance, coming out as a draw. Or maybe a win for both of them.

And maybe, she thinks, linking her arm through Zach's and dragging her out the door before she can think better of it and flee, maybe that means they can think about a rematch sometime very soon.

-the end-


End file.
